My last post provoked some excellent, thoughtful comments, and I thank everyone who chimed in. I'm not persuaded that my original use of "Yinzer" was classist, but I am persuaded that the term is a pretty complicated thing. It would have been wiser not to use it in the first place, and I won't use it in the future.
Continued conversation is welcome.
1 comment:
First, any regular reader of this board should understand that there was not the slightest attempt at elistism on the author's part in using the phrase "yinzers." It just isn't a term that most long-time Pittsburghers remember hearing until relatively recently, that's all. People who use that phrase strike me as similar to a new local anchor from out of town who mispronounces North Versailles (or, frankly, we are the ones probably mispronoucing it!). Nevertheless, a fun topic. The underlying issue of perhaps greater interest is this nagging self-image problem we've still got, that gets us prickly about little things of this nature.
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