Chick-ah-guh
Diverzee
Dese, dem, and dose (and da)
“I’m going by my friend’s house”
“Da Bears” guys on SNL were supposedly doing broad Chicago-ese.
Or pull up some archival tape of Hizzoner the 1st.
Hmmm… :dubious:
Hey, if we’re anything around here, we’re certainly able to laugh at ourselves.
But fat?
People who say there are no Chicago accents are deaf. Plain and simple. At my wife’s 20th HS reunion, I had to stop everyone from talking at our table and make them all pronounce the “th” sound correctly just so I could be sure they actually knew how.
Dey all lived on turdy-turd street and talked about going over by dere. Dose guys, I tell yas, dey couln’t talk widout making it all soun like dat. An, ya gets a few u-dem togeddeer and it just gets more and more like dat, yas know?
Nice near simulpost!
At least we’re on the same page as to what we sound like!
Dan Ackroyd as a sleazy salesman. The Chicago sports nuts from Saturday Night Live.
Plural words ending in a ‘z’ sound become the voiceless ‘s’ sound (like pronounce cars with the ‘s’ like in ‘Sammy Sosa’).
‘Ah’ sounds become the short ‘a’ sound (say ‘father’ with the ‘a’ like in ‘cat’, or ‘Chicago’ the same way).
The long ‘i’ is as harsh and pronounced as you could ever get (I may hear that more than most, because I learned to talk in Alabama, where long ‘i’ is pronounced ‘ah’). Say ‘dime’ like the ‘i’ sound has to have the power to cut glass.
I’m with you–a little confused about some of these comments. Maybe I can help (and yes, I am biased). I’ve actually put on weight since leaving Chicago, and even though I’m pretty attuned to noticing other people’s body types, I don’t think Chicago’s any fatter than NY. And I don’t know why “having to look at fat people” is a negative thing about a city anyway. There aren’t gross, morbidly obese hordes stomping around in too-tight clothing or anything. The Italian food has been very good and very similar in both NY and Chicago–I should know, I’ve tried plenty!
The “spookiness” might refer to the fact that the downtown area is pretty deserted at night. This is changing as the South Loop gets built up, but there’s not a lot of residential space in the business area, and it’s not very happening in the evening. You can walk down the street and not see another person for a few blocks. Might as well go up to River North, just a short walk from downtown, and where Chicagoans go after work. (Manhattan kind of spooks me because there are so many people out at all hours of the night–there’s nowhere to go to escape the crowds, noise, street garbage, etc. I enjoy Brooklyn, however–it’s just right.)
As for the Chicago accent, I have to laugh. Sure, there are people who talk like the Blues Brothers, but most have very mild accents, and the large number of transplants means you hear the influence of many different places. Personally, I’m going nuts trying to understand the “Joisey” accent that a lot of my co-workers here have, and the Brooklyn-Queens dialects–woah!
"I’m goin’ over by dere. An’ dat.
I thought that was the Brooklyn/Bronx accent.
This is RIDICULOUS. Our architecture and outdoor art is some of the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never seen a Frank Lloyd Wright house that made me “Vomit”, but maybe I’m not educated enough in what architecture has to do to make one vomit.
The buildings along the river are amazing, the Merchandise Mart, what about the still standing Water Tower on Michigan Avenue? The Monadnock Building? The old Courthouse on Hubbard? The building the Berghoff was in is gorgeous. Union Station is an amazing piece of work, and we work hard here to preserve our bungalow neighborhoods with grants and funding to Bungalow owners. The brownstones in Old Town and Lincoln Park are GORGEOUS. We have Calder and Picasso OUT on the street for everyone to enjoy.
Of all the things in the city to criticize, the architecture I would think would be last!
Um, yeah. And that FAT crack???
Just busting your chops shagnasty… 
Yeah, maybe people don’t come off as friendly, because you just call them fat asses every time you see them 
You see, here in Chicago, we love everyone regardless of whether they’re New York Super Model thin or not. We like to eat, we like to drink, and we don’t care so much for jogging.
I can see now that trying to take on the entire city of Chicago, Frank Lloyd Wright, plus sized people, Italian food, and speech-pattern diversity in one post was probably a little much to expect much success (especially in an appreciation thread).
I certainly don’t dislike Chicago but it is like one of those seeing-eye posters for me. I always read about it when I can and I try to appreciate it when I go but I never quite get it. I read a praise piece for Chicago written by John Cusack last summer so I am still making the effort. I even watched Ferris Bueler’s Day Off recently but it still doesn’t click.
I refuse to give into Frank Lloyd Wright and bungalow architecture though. It is architectural accolades like this scattered around Chicago that leave me dazed and confused.
I go to Chicago once a year on business and I cannot wait to go to the Seminary Bookstore.
I ain’t no seminarian. But the Bookstore does not stock tracts nor tractati. The Bookstore is in the basement of a gothic styled church building at the Uni, and it stocks the most incredible books I have never seen before in just about any category I care to name.
I never get out of there under a hundred and fifty bucks and I am always happy.
I didn’t get to go this April because of tight plane connections. I moped for the longest. I’d trade my soul for the Seminary Bookstore… wait.
Oh, stop it, gabriela! You’re making me miss it even more!
Some days, when I’d be feeling down or lousy, I’d go in just for a pick-me-up. Even if I had no money to spend, the browsing made me feel better. I know plenty of students and alumni who had to avoid the Seminary due to book-buying compulsions–every time they went in, they left a hundred poorer and ten pounds heavier. Buying textbooks there was always an adventure–the tall, narrow aisles and crazy maze layout plus the mad rush–what an experience.
This thread is making me less homesick. Thanks, everyone.
BTW, Mr. Bus Guy? I once read somewhere that you work at the bus company that runs the U of C buses. If so, I know those buses so well it hurts! The D runs to Shoreland at :20 and :50! Do you know James? He’s the best bus driver EVER. Love that guy! “Good morning superstars, today is your day! Jesus loves you! Don’t forget your keys or your ID!” funk music playing in background
Used to. But ho-lee Crap, is James still driving out there?? I love that guy. I miss a lot of the crew from there. Is Eduardo’s still there? That was my lunch hideaway - Buffalo Chicken pizza…
Millit: We know him as Bubby, but I’m not sure you want to mention that to him…
When we ran that, it was from a branch at 91st, just off the Ryan. Now it comes out of South Holland, but it’s the same drivers, and the same company.
Ho-Lee Crap, I love Bubby.
I’m on your side, Shag!
My opinion of Chicago is based on more personal experience, however.
In late 1988, my Dad suddenly decided that to spite my mother, he wasn’t going to contribute to my college tuitioon anymore, leaving me to have to withdraw from school. My girlfriend invited me home for the holidays, and spent a week more or less pretending she didn’t know who I was. The treasurer of a student organization I ran was very obviously misspending funds but lied about it to an almost pathological degree.
All hail from Chicago. This fact was unavoidable because they all talked about it all the damn time, like it was the greatest city on earth. It semed uncanny to me, that three people who entered my life from different directions and all had such a negative impact on my life by acting in such bizarre fashions should have this in common. I began to develop a deep distrust of the city, especially after I spent that holiday freezing my ass off (and me from Boston!)
I crossed paths with a high school acquaintance who I knew was attending U. of Chicago. “Dan”, I says to him, “you spend the school year in Chicago now. Is everyone there fucked in the head?” He thinks for a moment, and answers with the surprise of revelation, “Yeah… YEAH!”
For years afterward I had not a kind word to say about Chicago. Then, I accompanied a girlfriend (a different one) there for her best friend’s wedding, thrown by two rich families who were trying to outdo each other in showering those attending with luxuries and comforts. I mellowed out on Chicago after that.
But still, there’s something kinda tweaked about the place that I can’t put my finger on.
As for the accent, its a variation of what I call the North Middle US accent that stretches from the Dakotas to upstate New York, with those harsh, overpronounced non-initial R’s, especially hard on the ears of those of us from Boston, where R is propuhly relegated to oblivion.
If you watch Harrison Ford’s Fugitive movie, there are two Chicago cops who are trying to catch him before Tommy Lee Jones. The one with the moustache and glasses is doing a Chicago accent.
You should also mention the Logan Square Architectural Style, which began, obviously, in Chicago’s Logan Square district. I grew up there, until I was 12, & we moved away. I always wondered why the buildings in my new town were ugly…
My office overlooks magnificent Millenium Park (I am in the Prudential building). Chicago is…well Chicago is what convinced me to leave Ireland. Chicago is what convinced me to try something new and totally different.
It’s so vast that you don’t need to be from Chicago to succeed in Chicago. A city like St. Louis requires some familty connection/relationship to do well. Dublin is very similar which is why I left. You can suceed in Chicago without such connections (though they help, they aren’t mandatory).
It’s just an incredibly well put together city. Spacious, tidy and very easy to get around. Nothing beats the feeling of driving south down the Kennedy and seeing the city rise up just as you pass Irving Park Road. Breathtaking cityscape.
The restaurants here are as good as anywhere I have ever been other than Paris and Milan.
The women here are painfully good looking. Part of me dies every day when I run on the lakefront.
The suburbs are as beautiful and serene (hello North Shore) as the city is vibrant and active.
I live in Lakeview which is a great little area just north of the city. Baseball bores me but I love Wrigley Field.
My nice, private front garden.
Zoned parking in residential areas.
Alleyways.
Southport Avenue.
The Galway Arms on Fullerton and Clark (one of the only true Irish pubs in Chicago).
The decent soccer leagues.
The women…oh dear lord the women!
Yes, Eduardo’s was still there as of August, when I left. I had the Worst Date Ever there back in…1999? I posted it in a Best/Worst dates thread, but the details are creepy way beyond what I wrote there. I avoided Eduardo’s for a while due to bad memories of my insane stalker date, but they do have really great pizza.
And…you called him Bubby? scratches head Hee! I haven’t seen him in well over a year, but he was driving me around for 5-6 years all told. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still out there, sequined shirts, boombox, and all. 
You prompted me to drop a dime this evening. The guy that hired me into that company is a Big Deal VP, and reports that James aka Bubby, is still driving the Shoreland.
Like it happened yesterday, I can hear him running into the dispatch office on 91st, yelling at the dispatcher…“Excel, Excel…I’m here, I’m here, toss my keys!!!”, as he runs in late, with those big-ass clunky shoes banging on the steel steps as he runs out and I make the phone call to let someone know the 2nd Shoreland MIGHT be a few minutes late…