Languages in the Big Apple

People in New York love to hate on newcomers. The fact is, the majority of people who live here aren’t natives, but that doesn’t stop them from pretending. After a few years in town, people are desperate to seem like old-timers, and part of what vindicates that claim is mocking the bumbling masses who move here each year. The easiest targets, of course, are college freshman.

There are so many schools in New York, but the most conspicuous college kids are undoubtedly NYU and Columbia students. This fall, the grumbling is in full effect.

Everyone from gawker to New York magazine has written something bemoaning the swarms of new students invading Union Square and Morningside Heights. Toda’s Metro section in the Times features an article telling students what not to do.

Never, ever mispronounce Houston:

“Houston Street, the Lower Manhattan thoroughfare that put the Ho in SoHo, is pronounced HOW-ston. Unlike the city in Texas, which was named for the first president of the short-lived Republic of Texas, Samuel Houston, Houston Street is named for William Houstoun, a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress who married into a powerful Manhattan family that owned some of the land on which the street is built. The street name was shortened to Houston is the early 1800s.”

Calling Houston HOW-ston is basically equivalent to walking down the street in overalls with a blade of grass between your teeth or tattooing the word “hick” across your forehead. Very embarassing.

But one can’t help but feel sorry for these wide-eyed new students. Yes, they’re annoying, in a loud-mouthed, perpetually-drunk-on-the-subway, let’s-go-out-in-a-group-of-twenty-people type way, but to act like we’ve never been new in New York is just a lie (except for the tiny sliver of people who were actually born and raised here). Laugh at them, sure, but don’t be actin’ all superior-like, because even if you have been here for five years or longer, chances are you grew up somewhere in Iowa.