Wednesday, April 04, 2007

New Floridork?

There are many places in the United States that combine the names of the states to create a new town or area, such as the DelMarVa Peninsula on the East Coast. This area is occupied by parts of three states; Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

Some other examples are Texarkana (Texas, Arkansas), Kentuckiana (Kentucky, Indiana), Texahoma (Texas, Oklahoma), Mexicali (Mexico, California), and Texola (Texas, Oklahoma).

This type of combining of words or names is called Portmanteau, which means the blending of two or more words or parts of words to give a new meaning.


Today in Florida, after stopping at the busiest travel plaza I've ever been to in all my traveling years, Ed comes back to the truck and announces, "Florida is just New York with sunshine. They should call it Florida York."

This is obviously a new revelation to him, since I, as a New Yorker, already know that the south is the preferred destination for many northerners trying to escape the winter doldrums. Almost everywhere you go in Florida, you seem to hear the distinct accents of the Northeast.

If you close your eyes, you'd almost swear you were on Long Island surrounded by Jews and Italians; it's a wonder we haven't come across a restaurant that serves Gefilte Fish Parmigiana.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Piss off if y'all was southern would b no prob