A question for the yinzers on "speaking Pittsburgese"

Former Pittsburgh-adjacent resident here. I remember when we were going to tidy up something, we used to say we were going to “rid up”.

We also used to buy “jumbo” instead of baloney, and we liked our ham to be “chipped” so we could make barbecued chipped ham samwiches. That’s right — “samwiches”.

I’ll be going there tomorrow. Lifelong yinzer here!

I think is lot of phrases here are just midwest things as my family from Michigan and Indiana says both

like saying “wersh” for wash

This phrasing extends well beyond Pittsburgh. We used it in my youth in the Chicago area.

In fact, WXRT has a weekly movie review called “Going to the Show.” It’s done in full Chicago accent. “This is Goin’ to the Show, and I’m just a Regular Guy.”

Clevelander with western PA roots, here. I use “redd up”, and don’t even think of it as dialectical, like “yinz”, “warsh”, and “wooder” are. It’s just a word, and I’m not even sure what any other dialect’s equivalent word would be. It’s not synonymous with “cleaning”: Redding up is putting things away, but it does not include dusting, vacuuming, mopping, or the like.

I also use “the shirt needs cleaned” and “the shirt needs cleaning” interchangeably, and I can remember that one of those two is local dialect, but I can never remember which one.

And I’ve always wondered about this. Usually, the construction “the shirt needs cleaned” is explained to me as dropping a “to be” there, so “the shirt needs [to be] cleaned.” But when I initially came across the construction, I thought of it as substituting for “cleaning” (which I believe would be a gerund there). I reckon it’s probably more the former than the latter, but what’s the linguistic consensus on this form?

@Guinastasia

Yinz rahng an’at? :wink:

I grew up with my parents and my grandparents using it. My parents are Boomers, so it was more common for them, I suppose.

I remember back, oh maybe about 13 years or so, when the mayor at the time started a campaign called “Redd Upp Pittsburgh” to try and encourage people to stop littering. You can still see trash cans with the sign on them downtown. (Or should I say, “dahntahn”?)

And MY favorite local commedian is Steve Byrne. Especially since he went to my high school. (Unfortunately, he graduated a year before I got there, but I think I had a class or two with his brother)

I confirm that in Ireland we still use “press” to mean cupboard including kitchen storage as well as clothes storage. It’s an older usage but still current.

I think some people in London or south-east England say “that shirt needs cleaned”. I haven’t heard it myself but I have heard people complaining about it!

It sounds similar to “tidy up”.