On line or In line? When I first moved to the east coast from Michigan, tolerating some of their sayings took some time. For example, soda rather than pop. Soda is the clear bubbly stuff you add to drinks; hence, soda water. With soda already being a drink itself, you can't apply it to all carbonated beverages like east coasters want to do. See the official Pop versus Soda page for more.One of the big ones that always struck me as odd was on line versus in line. My new east coast friends, mostly the ones from New York, would say something like this: "I stood on the line all day." Being on a line has never made any sense to me. I've really given it a try to. Being "on" a line implies that the line goes up rather than out; like sitting on a chair. Unfortunately, if you twist your sense of dimensionality a bit, the saying does kind of make sense. Thus, I could never really argue it (at least not as strongly as pop/soda). Today, however, I stumbled upon this little nugget of goodness: clarity on my on/in line question: As for real physical lines, the British and New Yorkers wait "on line" (in queues), but most Americans wait "in line."So there you go, I'm not crazy.
|
| Powered by Blogger | © 2004-2008 The Permville Network |