Yinz Talk Good: A Pittsburghese Dictionary

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YINZ TALK GOOD
A Pittsburghese Dictionary, with Sentences n'at
by Jack Thach · born on the South Side · teaching chemistry in Phoenix since 1991

In August of 1991 my wife Rosa and I pulled into Phoenix behind a U-Haul, and when I opened the truck door I thought the engine was overheating. It was the air. That first Saturday my new neighbor was out in his driveway washing his pickup, and I walked over to be friendly and said, "Mine needs washed too." He looked at me like I'd grown another head.

That's how I found out I have an accent. Nobody in Pittsburgh has an accent. Everybody in Pittsburgh talks normal. It turns out it's the rest of yinz.

Some background. I grew up on the South Side, two blocks off Carson Street, in the house my mother still lives in. My father worked in the mill along the Mon. Half my high school class left town in the eighties when the mills went down, and a lot of us ended up in the Sun Belt. Rosa is from Tucson. We met in 1989 at a summer workshop for chemistry teachers in Denver, Phoenix was hiring chemistry teachers in 1991, and here I am, eight years later, forty-eight years old, teaching stoichiometry to sophomores who think I made up the word "slippy."

I didn't make it up. I made this page instead. Every word here is one I grew up saying or hearing on the South Side, and I've left out anything I'm not sure of. I've also left out the handful of words your grandmother wouldn't say at church, and the ones she'd only say at a Steelers game. My mother reads this page. My mother has opinions.

HOW TO READ THE ENTRIES. Each word comes with how to say it, what it means, and a sentence to practice on. The spellings are the way Pittsburghers write these words when we're making fun of ourselves, which is often. The capital letters in "How to say it" get the push. One sound you'll need for half the dictionary: in Pittsburgh the "ow" sound goes flat. "Down" comes out "dahn," "out" comes out "aht," and "house" comes out "hahs." Once you can say "dahntahn" without laughing, you're ready.

When you're done, try the Sentences for Practice. There's an answer key.

B · C · D · G · H · I · J · K · M · N · P · R · S · Y

THE WORD and how to say it	WHAT IT MEANS and a sentence
babushka buh-BOOSH-kuh	A kerchief folded in a triangle and tied under the chin. It's the Russian word for grandmother, which tells you who wore them. Mine wore hers to Mass, to the store, and out on the porch when it was windy. "Put your babushka on, it's spittin' aht."
Buccos BUCK-ohs	The Pittsburgh Pirates. Also "the Bucs." "Turn the radio up, the Buccos are on."
buggy BUG-ee	A shopping cart. Folks say it in parts of the South, too. We say it louder. "Get a buggy, we need pop."
chipped ham CHIPT ham	Chopped ham sliced so thin it comes off the slicer in a pile of little curls. Heat it up in barbecue sauce and put it on a bun and you have a ham barbecue, which is what every graduation party I ever went to served. You cannot get it in Phoenix. I have asked at every deli counter in Maricopa County. They hand me regular ham and I thank them and I go home. "Get a pound of chipped ham, we're having ham barbecues."
crick KRIK	A creek. "Yinz kids get aht of that crick before you ruin your shoes."
dahntahn DAHN-tahn	Downtown. The flat "ow" in action. "We're goin' dahntahn to see the Christmas windows."
dippy eggs DIP-ee eggs	Eggs fried over easy or sunny side up, so the yolk runs and you can dip your toast in it. I ordered these at a diner on my first morning in Phoenix. The waitress waited for the rest of the sentence. "Can I have dippy eggs and toast?"
gumband GUM-band	A rubber band. "Put a gumband around them baseball cards before you lose 'em."
haluski ha-LOOSH-kee	Cabbage and egg noodles fried in a lot of butter. Slovak, I believe, but on the South Side everybody's grandmother made it, Slovak or not. "Is there any more haluski or did your brother eat it all?"
the Incline the IN-cline	Two cable railways that haul little cars straight up the side of Mount Washington: the Monongahela Incline, running since 1870, and the Duquesne Incline, since 1877. Ride one up at night and look down at the Point and the bridges and the rivers. It's the best view in America and I will argue that with anybody, including the Grand Canyon, which I have now seen. "Take your cousins up the Incline when they visit."
Iron City ARN city	Pittsburgh's own beer. "Arn" is how a Pittsburgher says "iron." My father had exactly one on Saturday nights and made it last through the whole ballgame. "Hand your dad an Arn City and leave him be."
jaggerbush JAG-er-bush	A thorny bush, a briar. The thorns are "jaggers." "The ball went in the jaggerbushes and nobody's goin' after it."
jumbo JUM-bo	Bologna. The lunchmeat, not the nonsense. Fried in a pan until it puffs up in the middle, on white bread, it's the finest sandwich known to science, and I am a scientist. "Make me a fried jumbo sandwich, I'm starvin'."
Kennywood KEN-ee-wood	The amusement park up the Mon, open since 1898. Every school around had its own picnic day there, and you counted the days till yours. The Jack Rabbit has a double dip I can still feel in my stomach thirty-five years later. "When's your school's Kennywood day?" Kennywood's open: what you say, quietly, to a man whose fly is down. It saves everybody's dignity. Learn it. Use it. Somebody in your life needs it. "Hey, buddy. Kennywood's open."
the Mon the MAHN	The Monongahela River, which you say muh-NON-guh-HEE-luh if you have time. It comes up from the south, meets the Allegheny at the Point, and the two of them make the Ohio. The South Side is on the Mon. I grew up watching the coal barges go by. "We'll walk dahn by the Mon after supper."
n'at n-AT	"And that." It means "and so on" or "and everything," and it goes on the end of a list, or on the end of a sentence for no reason at all. "We had pierogies, kielbasa, haluski n'at."
nebby NEB-ee	Nosy. Every street in Pittsburgh has one nebby neighbor, and if you don't know who it is on your street, it's you. "She's so nebby she knows what we're havin' for supper before we do."
needs washed needs WASHT	The grammar that got me in trouble with the neighbor. In Pittsburgh a thing "needs washed," "needs fixed" or "needs ironed." We leave out the "to be." The cat "wants fed," too. It isn't wrong. It's efficient. Two fewer words, and we've got places to be. More below. "The car needs washed and the grass needs cut."
pierogies pih-ROH-geez	Dumplings filled with potato and cheese, or sauerkraut, or whatever Grandma decided, boiled and then fried in butter with onions. Half the church basements in town make them by the thousands and sell them by the dozen. "Ma, save me a dozen pierogies, I'm comin' home for Christmas."
the Point the POINT	The tip of downtown, where the Allegheny and the Mon meet and the Ohio starts. There's a park there now with a big fountain. If you're ever lost in Pittsburgh, every road eventually dumps you at the Point, and you can start over. "Meet us at the Point for the fireworks."
pop POP	Soda. Any kind of soda. Half the Midwest says it too, but out here in Phoenix it's "soda" and they look at you funny. "Grab me a pop aht of the fridge."
redd up RED up	To clean up, to tidy. "Redd" is an old Scottish word for clearing things away, and the Scots-Irish got to western Pennsylvania early. This is the most useful word in the dictionary. Nothing in English does the job as well. "Redd up your room, your grandmother's comin'."
slippy SLIP-ee	Slippery. My sophomores still don't believe this one. It's in the dictionary now. This one. "Watch it, them steps are slippy."
spicket SPICK-it	A spigot: the faucet on the outside of the house where you hook up the hose. "Turn the spicket off before you come in."
the Stillers the STILL-ers	The Pittsburgh Steelers. Four Super Bowls in six seasons in the seventies, which happened to be the years I was in my twenties, so I may have a slightly inflated idea of how life works. This season opened Sunday night, September 12, in Cleveland, and I'll just leave the score here. "Stillers 43, Browns nothin'."
the Strip the STRIP	The Strip District, along the Allegheny just up from downtown, where the produce houses and the markets are. Saturday morning in the Strip is a religious experience with free samples of cheese. "We're goin' dahn the Strip Saturday, you comin'?"
sweeper SWEEP-er	A vacuum cleaner. To "sweep" the rug is to vacuum it. My mother has owned four sweepers since 1960 and never once vacuumed. "Run the sweeper before company comes."
yinz YINZ	You, plural. It started as "you ones." The South has "y'all," parts of New York have "youse," and we have yinz, which is the best of the three. This year a few of my third-period kids started saying it, and I have never been prouder as an educator. "Are yinz comin' to the picnic or what?"

THE GRAMMAR LESSON: "NEEDS WASHED"

A teacher can't help himself, so here it is properly.

In most of the country you say "the car needs to be washed" or "the car needs washing." In Pittsburgh, and a good stretch of the country around it, the car "needs washed." The word after "needs" is the past participle, and the "to be" just isn't there. The same goes for "wants" and, with some people, "likes." The baby wants picked up. The dog wants out. (Plenty of people out here say that last one too, I've noticed, and then they look at me funny for the rest.)

It isn't slang and it isn't lazy. It's a regular rule, and we follow it every time. Every one of my students who has tried to make fun of it has gotten it wrong, which proves my point: you have to grow up with it.

Practice: the lawn needs mowed. The gutters need cleaned. The essay needs rewritten. (That last one comes up a lot in my line of work.)

ONE MORE THING: THE H
It's Pittsburgh, with an h on the end. For a while around the turn of the century the government spelled it without, and the city got its h back in 1911. We are not giving it up again. If you write to me, spell it right, and I'll write back.

SENTENCES FOR PRACTICE >>
Three levels, a phone call from my mother, and an answer key.

OTHER PITTSBURGHERS ON GEOCITIES.US
· You Know You're Addicted to the Net When..., a Pittsburgh mom's list of forty-six signs you spend too much time online.
· The Steel Valley Pipes & Drums: fourteen pipers and eight drummers, Tuesday nights in a church hall near Pittsburgh.
· And for comparison, You Might Be From Minnesota If... has a little Minnesotan-English dictionary of its own. They say "pop" too. We'll allow it.

Yinz have visited this page

times since December 1998.

Got a word I missed? Only send it if you're sure, and only if your grandmother would say it.
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Last updated Sunday, September 19, 1999
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