Decoding Out of State Slang For New Yorkers

Tell me if you can relate - you're having a conversation with someone and they use a phrase or certain terminology and you have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

You don't want to be ridiculous and stop the person and ask them to clarify, but now all you can focus on is trying to figure out what they meant when they used that word or phrase.

If you have been there - you're in good company.

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A Hudson Valley-Er Takes On New England

I am a Hudson Valley native. Grew up in Fishkill - New Paltz for college - began working radio Poughkeepsie - 7.5 year pit stop in New England (CT and Western MA) - back to the Hudson Valley, and now in Wappingers.

I tell you this to prove my credibility.

Having once been an outsider in a New England world, it's wild for me to now be back in the Hudson Valley hearing all sorts of New England terminology being thrown around. Our new morning show, Ryan Roberts and Matthew James, joined us from the same areas of New England I was once a resident of, so it's been somewhat of a weird deja vu type situation these days.

Regional Slang For Beginners

As a Hudson Valley native who was likely just as confused as you are hearing Ryan and Matthew use some of this New England slag around these parts, let me break some of it down for you...

Grinder - Sandwich

It all started when I heard them use the phrase 'grinder' - and no they weren't referring to that website, they were talking about a sandwich. That took us on a deep dive into how people order sandwiches locally, and what words they use to order them.

Dunks - Dunkin' or Dunkin' Donuts

For some reason, this one has always bugged me. I most definitely enjoyed how very many Dunkin' locations there were in MA and CT, and how you were never more than 3-5 minutes away from the drive-thru, but the phrase 'Dunks' has always, and will always bother me.

REMEMBER WHEN: There Was An Actual Horse at the Wappingers Dunkin' Drive Thru?

The Cape - Cape Cod

If you say Cape Cod that is an immediate indication that you are in fact an outsider. We are going away to The Cape will make you part of the in-crowd.

Statie - State Trooper/Police Officer

Here in the Hudson Valley, usually if we're cruising along on the Taconic or 84 and a State Trooper pulls out behind us, we'd say something along the lines of 'OH (insert preference expletive), a Trooper! in Mass, they call em' 'Staties.' A Statie got me for going 90 on the pike. BONUS: The Massachusetts Turnpike is always referred to as 'The Pike'

Flip A B*tch - Make A U-Turn

Sometimes interchangeable with the phrase 'bang a uie' - flip a b*tch is just another loving way to indicate that you need to, or have, made a U-turn.

Packie - Liquor Store

When I moved from NY to CT in 2011 I found two things very surprising; grocery stores at the time did not sell alcohol, and you couldn't get booze anywhere on a Sunday. Thankfully times have changed, but if you need to pick up a bottle of wine, or Jack...you head to your favorite packie to do so.

Wicked - Really & Pisser - Awesome = Really Awesome!

Together, wicked pisser means that something is really awesome. I haven't caught our newly relocated m@$$hole friends really using this one, so this is more of a bonus to this vocab lesson.

That's all for today's lesson, maybe next time we can come up with some Hudson Valley slang or words our new friends need to know to survive here in good ol' New York State.