A little back ground: I was born in Chicago, as was my mom, her parents, their parents, etc…
So, I got into a discussion with some coworkers and said something about Armitage being “twenty hundred north” at which the conversation came to an abrupt halt. They maintainted that the streets divisible by 1000 were properly called “thousands” as in “Armitage is two thousand north”
I think this is ridiculous because no one calls Division “one thousand, two hundred north”, so why would you call Oak “one thousand north”?
I realize that there’s no real right answer, and that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but in this case, like others, I think there is a way that is more authentically Chicago.
I agree with you; streets in Chicago are NEVER measured in thousands. Yes, it does sound a tad jarring to suburbanites and other foreigners, and the mathematician in me rebels a bit, but my three generations of Chicago heritage know that it is the proper way.
I also applaud your proper spelling and (one assumes) pronunciation of “hunnert”…TRM (twenty one hunnert north, eight hunnert west)
To conduct a proper survey, you must first find out how the responder pronounces Chicago. Since I pronounce it, the proper way, with an ‘i’ as in if, and an ‘a’ as in awe, the answer is Armitage is twenty two hundred north.
I was born and raised Chicago, but I’ve always said “two-thousand” north for Armitage, and “twenty-four hundred” north for Fullerton. I also refer to Pulaski as “four thousand” west, if necessary to give someone directions on the grid, and, say, Kedzie as “thirty-two hundred west.” “Twenty hundred” and “forty hundred” sound really bad to my ears, but it could be a dialectal difference within Chicago. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use hundreds for streets divisible by 1000, but it’s not like it comes up in conversation that often.
Actually, it would be “*the *Jewel” (even though we all know there is more than one of them) in my neighborhood. “*The *Dominics” is acceptable, but for some reason not as required. And Meijers? We don’t need no stinkin’ Meijers!
We either said “da Jewels” or “Jewels” with the “s” at the end. As for “Chicago” = “shih-CAW-go,” I think that’s a division in accents within Chicago. We said “shih-CAH-go” with an overenunciated “CAH.” I hear both “CAH” and “CAW” variations among people with very strong Chicago accents (like city workers, cops, folks from Back of the Yards, etc.) I was born in Back of the Yards and grew up a mile or two west, and the accent here is (or was) very much influenced by Eastern European where the “AH” sound is more common than the “AW” sound.
