Going "Down Town"
When I talked about accents recently somebody suggested I talk more about them. Ok then. Maybe it should be a regular feature, as it's something I've always been fascinated by. For starters, here's something that's had me thinking since:
Karen went to Nottingham Castle the other day with the kids and on leaving was asked by a "Polish" (term used to cover anybody from the Baltic States) couple if they were heading the right way for "down town".
This would have been a perfectly normal question in most other English-speaking countries - America for sure, Canada perhaps, and possibly Australia? In those countries, I believe, downtown is the inner city area. Such as "Downtown LA". In England is doesn't really mean anything.
At first I assumed that they'd learnt English (or picked some up) by watching American TV and that's why they thought we too must refer to the "town centre" as "down town". Then, when I though about it, another possibility occurred to me. Perhaps they'd actually picked up the much more local colloquialism whereby people might ask:
Where yer going?
And the answer might be:
Down town
In the same way the way the answer might well be:
Down pub
Or even:
Down shops
In either cases it actually means "I will be going (down) to the pub" or "I am about to go (down) to the shops". Although you might well also say "up shops". Why it's always down I don't know.
It struck me as a funny thing to ask though. I guess I'll never know where they actually got the saying from. Respect to them though for having the guts to (assuming they weren't just tourists) come to another country to work and learn the (often confusing) language. The hardest part of which must be getting your head round the odd things people say in different areas of the country, which you won't learn listening to a tape or watching a video.
Now I've got that thing where the word down, because I've just said it my head so many times doesn't seem like a real word. Do you ever get that? I once had a moment of insanity after way too much coding where I'd convinced myself "each" wasn't in fact a real world. I think I even searched Chambers online dictionary to check. Doh.
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In many parts of the country it is seen as a social direction. For example "Going up to London" means that you are going up in class status to a higher social class. "Going down the shops" means you are going to a lower class area. Who said Class was dead?
In some areas it is a physical thing where up or down literally indicates changes in heights. In some areas up/down indicates direction, normally in a north(up) or south(down) direction.
It really does depend where you were brought up and it changes, sometimes confusingly so, as you go round the country.
I'm an Aussie from Australia (40 years young), I have worked in Canada and USA, and "down town" is American and Canadian, not said in Australia - yet I would know having worked O/S.
You'd get the same blank look from 95% of Aussies that have never been out of Australia if you asked them if they were headed "down town".
I'd just point them south of the city in Aus.
Paul
Jake
Does "down town" up there sometimes refer to going "down" to London? I have often heard people down here say they are going "up town" and they mean London, not the local town centre. That always amuses me.
Richard
Jake, good topic.
Back in cumbria we would say "ist gan t' toon" or if we were going home we say "ist gan yam".
"Where are you going?" would be "whist yer jarn?" in cumbrian
It's optional to add the word "eh" or "like" :-)
You might find Bill Bryson's book "Mother Tongue" a fascinating and entertaining read http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mother-Tongue-Language-Bill-Bryson/dp/014014305X
People criticise him for getting some of his foreign language facts wrong but I found the book enjoyable and it certainly threw some light on why we English speakers speak the way we do from region to region.
Downtown is definitely NOT used an part of the colloqium in Australia. Rather, we might say we are going "to town", "in to town" or "to the city" (or in the capital, Canberra, "to Civic".
I always correct people (annoyingly) when they say going "up to City Name" if they're already north of the place or vice versa.
Richard. "Down town" would never mean going to London.
Thanks Rob. Might seek that book out. Never read any Bill Bryson books. He seems to like Marmite.
Woops. I mean *be* like Marmite. As in you either love or hate him, based on what I've heard. Whether he likes it or not I don't know...
"I am about to go (down) to the shops"
Now in the southern States of the U.S. That could also be said as:
I am fixin' to go down to the shops
With down just being generalized and altitude, direction or class changes not being meant. Here in the south I think that using down in this way is just meant to imply somewhere other than home as we use it in whatever destination we may be headed.
I'm going down to the store/grocery store/movies/park/whatever
I'm aware that fixin' probably isn't a word you can find in the dictionary (I may be wrong) but is used quite often in the South.
Cool topic!
Downtown works pretty well in America, but there are some cities where there's both a Downtown and an Uptown. And of course, the uptown is south of downtown which is always confusing, too.
Personally, I'm still waiting to find out the truth behind the following: Is it duck-duck-greyduck or duck-duck-goose. I've seen some real differences depending on which rural area you come from.
Then there's the meals in a day.
Rural: Breakfast, Dinner, Supper.
City / Town: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.
duck-duck-greyduck?
When I was in the UK I'd always refer to being in London as "being in town", or travelling "up to town". Which from the south coast was in fact "up" in a sense.
I second the recommendation for The Mother Tongue. I've unfortunately lost my copy, but I really enjoyed it.
"Duck-duck-goose" for those unfamiliar is a child's game: the kids stand around in a circle, with one on the outside who walks around, tapping those in the circle on the head, one at a time, saying "duck" each time. At some random moment, he says "goose" instead, and he and the "goose" chase each other around the circle and back to the vacant spot. Whoever gets there first stands in the spot, and the remaining child starts over with the duck... duck... business. Never heard the gray-duck version, though.
In Hawaii - you can distinguish between successful and unsuccessful trips in the local dialect. Whereas on the mainland the conversation might go like this:
Where did Jim go?
He went to buy a shirt.
In "Hawaiian", it might go like this:
Where did Kimo go?
He go town go buy shirt (meaning he actually got the shirt)
Or like this:
He go town fo' [for] buy shirt (meaning he went, but didn't end up buying one).
Of course, you could do this in standard American English too, but it would take a lot more words. A lot of the local population speaks standard English for business purposes, but will return to Hawaiian pidgin (as it's known) in more informal settings. Sometimes this can be a little jarring if you're not expecting it - when I lived out there, I had to go to court one time for a speeding ticket. The guy ahead of me was getting quizzed by the judge, who spoke like a CBS news anchor. This defendant was clearly not getting it, so the judge smoothly lapsed into pidgin, and the guy did a lot better after that. Well, at least in comprehension. He was still in a fair amount of trouble for blowing of a previous court date, as I recall.
10 or so miles down the road and you start saying "Going Up Town" and for the real lazy "Going Town".
No idea why it becomes up rather than down :)
Here-here - great topic. I was recently in Miami where the blend of Spanish and English is palpable but also almost unnoticed with sufficient exposure. After a week there I started talking with staccato pronunciation like many Spanish speakers pronounce their English there. It's catchy for some reason - same reason I suspect we all adapt to the local, to fit in and smooth relations.
So, if I can do it justice in print, something simple like "We're going to get some lunch.", pronounced, as Sean said, CBS Anchor style, would locally be flavored "weergoin toogeh some lounch". Hard to really get it, but almost everyone seems to have a Latin-American accent adopted into their English, either a quick combining of words as I tried to convey, or a more rolling and passionate expository narrative style with a lot of hand gestures. I'm not sure where these each come from but folks I know who seem to be more Latino swerve towards the quick version and folks I know who seem more European Spanish tend the other way.
Here is the definitive American definition delivered by Petula Clark in 1964; "Downtown".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVE7lRZuFM
In New York City, a whole other country, downtown and uptown indicate the specific areas in the city to which you are heading. I'm not knowledgeable enough to actually know what areas those are, however.
Peace,
Rob:-]
Oh, silly me. Petula Clark was born in England and "holds the distinction of having the longest span on international pop music charts of any British female artist." (Wikipedia).
The song, "Downtown" was written by “The British Bacharach”, Tony Hatch. "Inspired by Tony Hatch’s first walk down Broadway In New York, Downtown became a huge hit across Europe, going on to sell over three million copies."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/songlibrary/downtown.shtml
So perhaps not so "definitively American" after all. At least it was inspired by an American city.
Well, enough about that from me.
Peace,
Rob:-]
It is duck-duck-grey duck.
Wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown
Jake - It's a silly kids game. You sit in a circle and one person goes around the outside of the circle touching each kid on the head, saying a "duck" or the color of a duck, and then, typically on the slowest person, they'll say "goose" or "greyduck" and then start running around the circle back to that persons spot, hopefully not being caught by the person they picked.
Doing the greyduck version is better because if forces the kids to come up with color combinations. So you'd go, "blue - duck" "purple - duck" "green - duck"...etc.
So, in Canada... well at least on the west coast, we use downtown or uptown almost interchangeably. As in I've got to go uptown and get some shoes. Or, let's go downtown and get some shoes.... doesn't seem to matter. I don't think we have traditionally had a large enough city to have both an uptown and a downtown.. although we understand what people mean if there is a city that has one.
My favorite one, however, is if you live in North Vancouver and want to indicate that you are going to downtown Vancouver.. you say, I'm going "over town". I guess this is because you have to cross a bridge to get there? Not everyone says it... mostly people who have grown up there.. or lived there a long time.. usually people who have originated from Britain.
Next we will be questioning why Americans call the main course an appetizer (sic) :)
In Australia you would usually say you were "heading into town". Downtown is usually referred to as the CBD (central business district).
I'm an American and to me downtown is one word, not two. When people say they are going "down" to some place I always map it to "going south to" and it irks me if they say they are going "down to" someplace that is north of where they are.
Your story also reminds me of the time I was in Japan and owner of my local sushi shop wanted to take me somewhere in Tokyo he called "shita machi". My Japanese was such that it took me a few minutes to realize it translated literally to "down town".