If I heard someone say “I live in Bronx,” it would be like fingernails on the blackboard, and all that. How does it sound to a non-New Yorker? Or how does “I live in the Bronx” sound to you?
Second, about our state university system… It seems that all of the other states have a “University of…” and it sounds real natural. OK, not New Jersey, but they’re our closest neighbor. So even though I can’t remember anyone ever mentioning the University of South Dakota, it sounds real correct and natural to me. But “the University of New York” is like…we’re back to nails on the blackboard. How does it sound to people from other places?
I’d be interested in hearing from dopers who have never been around NY as well as dopers who have visited, lived within 1000 miles etc.
‘‘I live in Bronx’’ is nails on a chalkboard, but I talk on the phone every day to New Yorkers so I’m familiar with lots of street names and areas of the city. (It’s weird giving directions to places you’ve never been.) I’ve lived in the Michigan all of my life but I am about to move to the New Brunswick, New Jersey.
“I live in Bronx” sounds very very wrong, unless the speaker is a recent immigrant. “The University of New York,” not so much, although I would probably picture something along the lines of the University of Phoenix, since I know that isn’t what the state universities are called.
ETA: Oh, and I’m not from New York, although my mother is, and I’ve visited a few times.
The full name is “The Bronx,” named after the Bronx River, which in turn was named after Jonas Bronck. Since it was the “Bronck’s farm and river” it morphed from there. See here. The county in which it is located is named simply “Bronx County.”
Are you saying someone who lived there says “I live in Bronx.”?
Never been to New York, but I do know that it’s “the Bronx” and not just “Bronx” (which just sounds wrong). The greater Seattle area is also divided up into regions, some of which demand a definite article: there’s Belltown, Magnolia, Ballard, Green Lake, Capitol Hill, the University District, and the International District.
“University of New York” is pretty neutral to me, as a term. I don’t watch college sports and I don’t pay attention to colleges. For all I know, there really is a “University of New York” somewhere. Presumably you mean NYU. Here in Washington State there is a “University of Washington” and a “Washington State University” and a “Western Washington University” so I figure hey, “University of New York?” Could well be.
There is a regionalism that I question, though. Here we call the main thoroughfair “Interstate 5” or “I-5.” People from elsewhere call it “the 5” or “the I-5.” I don’t quite get that one; a definite article like the shouldn’t be necessary if there’s only one, right?
Where I grew up, like Ninetywt, there was only one interstate, so it was “the interstate.” Southern California has SO MANY numbered highways, freeways, interstates, etc, that I think people just eventually started saying the 5, the 10, the 210, the 99, etc. Here in Arizona it’s a mix. I’m actually not sure what the natives tend to say but I’ve picked up the California “the” + number nomenclature.
I agree! I’m so glad someone brought this up. For you to say “I live in Bronx” would be like my saying, “I live in the Los Angeles”.
Why the two statements above sound so wrong I can’t say, except that it must have something to do with what Chomsky called the deep structure of the language.
In the case of names like The Bronx, though, there are certainly exceptions. “The Bronx Zoo” and “The Los Angeles Zoo” are both correct, as are “The Bronx Bombers” and “The Los Angeles Dodgers”.
Question: If somebody addresses a piece of mail to you, should the name of the city in the address be “The Bronx, NY”, or just “Bronx, NY”? I suppose they could also write “New York, NY”, but that’s not usually done with addresses in the boroughs, is it?
I heard people say “I-5” or “I-805” in San Diego (late 1970s), but never in L.A. Here it’s almost always “the <number>”, except when somebody says the freeway name, e.g. the Santa Monica Freeway, but that usage is on the way out.
It bothers me that current style and usage guidelines have been changed regarding The Ukraine, The Congo, and The Sudan. I understand that people in those countries prefer that their countries be known on the world stage without the article in their names; perhaps there is a perception that the article implies that the region isn’t a real country yet, but just a remote region amorphously defined. That’s all well and good, but it seems to me that it still sounds wrong in English, and it’s as if these countries are telling us how to run our language.
I know that intellectually, but it’s just never going to be the first definition of “kill” that my brain retrieves.
Another strange New York thing is the numbered public schools, P.S. this or that. In most other places the schools are either named after admirable personages or the community they serve.
Just “Bronx, NY” when addressing mail. And “New York, NY” is customarily for Manhattan addresses only. For your further amusement, mail to Brooklyn is general addressed to “Brooklyn, NY,” while mail to Queens is addresses to the individual areas, for example, mail I send to my aunt in Queens is addressed to “Flushing, NY.”