
Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up” - benbreen
https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/being-texan-prepositions/
======
globuous
Very interesting !

Funny thing, in France we do use "up" and "down" but with a different set of
axis. They don't represent north and south.

If you're in Lille (north of Paris), you'd say "I'm going up to Paris"
although you'd be going south. If you're in Paris and you're going to Lille,
you'd say "I'm going down to Lille" although you'd be going north. But if
you're going to Lyon from Paris, you'd say "I'm going down to Lyon" and you
would be going south.

In French you go "up" to the capital (or more generally to a larger city than
you're currently in), and you go down from the capital (or more generally to a
smaller city than the one you're currently in).

So you'd say from Paris "I'm going down to Lyon" or "I'm going down to
Grenoble" and from Lyon you'd say "I'm going down to Grenoble" or "I'm going
up to Paris". (And you instantly know that Paris is the largest city of the 3
and Grenoble the smallest ^^ so from Grenoble you go "up to Lyon" and "up to
Paris").

I learned that fairly old because I didn't live in France until later in my
childhood but I always found this linguistic kinda funny :)

Descendons donc en province, disent-ils a Paris !

~~~
laurieg
In Japan there is a similar phenomenon. Trains going to the capital (or other
urban center) use the word 'going up' (上り) and trains going away from the
capital use the 'going down' (下り). This is so well used that signs and station
announcements use the words too. It's not just a colloquialism.

~~~
mseebach
It's established early railway lingo in the UK. I'm not sure how common it is
in casual non-railway usage, but apparently stations have up- and down
platforms and staff might refer to the 7.50 'up' train.

------
__david__
As a native Californian I definitely use "up" and "down". Up to L.A., down to
San Diego. I might make a trip up the coast to Oregon or Washington. I also
might go back east (meaning the east coast). Never used "out" though, probably
because I'm already about as west as you can go on this continent!

"Over", however is just used without regard to direction, though it generally
signifies a close distance. I'd head over to the city next door, but I'd never
head over to Las Vegas. I'd head "out" to Vegas though. So maybe "out" is for
far distances?

~~~
markcerqueira
I'm surprised to hear a native Californian would say "back east." I thought
only people from the East Coast (or I guessed who lived there at one point)
would go "back."

~~~
wvenable
West coast Canada we also "back east" \-- it's the linguistic opposite of "out
west".

The underlying source is the idea everyone is somehow "from" the east, and
they (or their ancestors) at one point moved "out west", but if they were to
return, it would be to go "back east."

------
cthalupa
I've lived my whole life in Texas and never assigned cardinal directions to
out or over. Up and down, sure, but that seems fairly universal.

No one in checking with, regardless of Texas hometown or age had any idea this
was a thing, either, and that's hitting people up to 60 years old and from
Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Maybe it's a rural Texas thing?

~~~
kodablah
> Maybe it's a rural Texas thing?

Not really. Maybe for the author. Living a long time in rural Texas (now
urban), I can say that someone might have a propensity to use over and out for
specific directions, but in my experience they are interchangeable and it's
not a universal truth. Granted there are no universal truths about
Texas/Texans so when you hear one, discount it. And you are right that up and
down as cardinal directions doesn't feel uniquely Texan but can't tell when
only on the inside.

In the seemingly endless rush to satisfy Texan exceptionalism, dialect and
slang are among the traits that are always held up as unique. Yet every region
has their own.

~~~
WillAbides
This brings back a memory of a conversation with my grandfather. We were in
Midland, and I said something about heading over to Odessa. He made a
disparaging remark about my intelligence and said we would have to head out to
Odessa from there.

That never made any sense to me until now.

------
nograpes
In North Ontario, Canada, and in some parts of the East coast, many speakers
use the words "up" and "down" to refer to _elevation_ rather than direction.
So you would say "I'm going up to the store" only if the store was higher in
elevation than where you were currently standing, even slightly.

I grew up in North Ontario, but my parents were not native English speakers,
and it was only in my late teens that most of my friends (who had native
English speaker parents) were using the terms this way. I used "up" and "down"
interchangeably.

What amazed me is that this implied an intrinsic awareness of elevation, which
I didn't have; everybody else always knew if your house was higher than their
house.

In some cases, the up/down distinction was used _in place_ of left and right.
In fact, I learned about this distinction sitting in a car at an intersection
and getting the directions "just go up the road", as if that was totally
unambiguous.

~~~
andrew_wc_brown
I'm for the Northwestern Ontario, or as we think of it as the "truth north"

up and down are directions. Also we say pack sack instead of back pack.

------
blunte
Honestly, I never thought about the "rules" of how these words were used...
that's just how we talk in much of Texas (and probably other places).

I can guess that "out" meaning west is because in early American times, going
west was dangerous. You were going "out" of safety and into the wild. Going
"over" just meant going horizontally on the map but within an established
(safe) area.

Up and down are kind of obvious, given their relationship to a map. We go "up
north" or "down south".

Also, and I imagine this has been brought across HN before - y'all can be
singular or plural. Or rather, it can be "about singular", meaning we may not
be sure if we're talking about one or a few. But if we want to be clear that
we're talking about more than a few, we say "all y'all". Make no mistake, it
means every one of you.

Every region has its interesting local language quirks. I guess few regions
are full of people as proud as Texans, so we don't often hear about the quirks
of Iowans.

~~~
look_lookatme
The sing-songy nature of "all y'all" provides such a nice wind-up for dropping
the hammer on a bunch of kids not listening to their mother. The foundational
difference between "y'all get out in the yard for family photos" vs "all y'all
better get your asses out in the yard for family photos" is unmistakeable if
you grew up in Texas.

I use y'all in slack/email within the company I work at and correspondence
with just about anyone (I live in the Northeast, but still use it), but I save
"all y'all" for my closest friends, even though they might not have grown up
hearing it.

~~~
ianamartin
Definitely agree with this. Both are plural, but all y'all is a direct address
to a specific group of people.

I might be chatting with people at work, standing around getting a snack in
the kitchen or, like you said, hanging out in slack general. And I might toss
something out to the room, "Y'all want to go out to this comedy club on
Thursday night?"

But when Thursday night rolls around and 3 of us are waiting on 5 people to
commit and log out, then it's, "All y'all need to wrap it up."

------
davidw
Fun fact about cardinal directions in Italy: they don't really exist and
people will give you confused looks. They talk about going in the direction of
whatever city or landmark lies that way - "towards Milano, towards Bassano,
follow the canal" and so on.

------
technofiend
I guess y'all are fixin to use our directional words.

Honestly Houston (and I'm sure the other major cities too) has a bunch of
weird pronunciation that marks natives versus folks just lucky enough to move
here and I assumed the article was going to go into things like "fixing" or
our weird town names.

Here in Houston for example "Kuykendall" Street is pronounced with an R like
the Dutch name from which it derives "Kerkendal". I'm not sure how the Dutch
emphasize the syllables but it's "KIRK-en-dahl" here.

Our street "Elgin" is pronounced with a soft g instead of the hard one found
at the front of the drink and there's no y sound marrying the consonant.

Fuqua is properly pronounced "FYU-qway" at least according to the Fuqua I met
working at a local energy company. And "San Jacinto" doesn't follow Spanish
pronunciation rules and is pronounced "San Jyacinto" not "San Yacinto or San
Hacinto." Same with "San Felipe" which is "San fillipee" not "San Fuh-lee-
pay."

Here's an article with more examples.

[https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2013/6/1/whats-in-a-
st...](https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2013/6/1/whats-in-a-street-name-
may-2013)

~~~
hmcdona1
My favorite is if you're from Houston you call on/off ramps "feeder roads". I
don't think people use that term anywhere else.

~~~
technofiend
Yeah the feeder road is the entire parallel road not just the on ramp. Between
feeders and regular freeway exits every mile or two it really prevents some of
the incredibly dangerous driving I've seen in other parts of the country where
people dive for an exit because the next one is 5+ miles away. Because we
typically have overpasses for intersections under the freeway it's no big deal
if you miss an exit. Just take the next one 1/2 mile or a mile away and make a
uturn underneath the freeway. If you aren't going far you can just take the
feeder down to your missed exit.

------
bshimmin
In England, if you're fairly traditional, you would always say _up_ to London,
Oxford, or Cambridge (and, from the latter two, if you are a student and
temporarily expelled, you are "sent down" \- or "rusticated", to use a lovely
word), whether you're starting from the north or the south.

~~~
Roedou
I've never heard 'up to London'; being from Manchester, London was definitely
"down South".

Coming 'up' to Cambridge had a specific meaning, of matriculating at the
University. For example: I came up to Cambridge in 2002. I assume that the
University of Oxford uses it in the same way?

~~~
standardhuman
I came up to Cambridge in 2004 and was at Oxford before that. I can confirm
that both places use it in this sense. :) That said, I've also noticed that
many of my friends from those years still use "up" when simply visiting Oxford
or Cambridge, and I do get the odd alumni e-mail inviting me to come "up" to
Cambridge (not sure if this is unique to a secretary at Clare, or more widely
used).

------
sputknick
We use the same terms in the Shenandoah Valley, which makes sense, since many
of the original settlers to Texas were from Virginia, and might explain the
term "over" because many places you might go would be over the Blue Ridge
Mountains. A related one I've noticed since moving to Seattle, is people using
"back east" to describe the east coast. It's not just transplants from the
east coast like myself that do it, people born and raised in Washington will
say "back east" to describe the East Coast. An interesting remnant from our
country being settled from east to west.

------
self_assembly
Another fun one that I'm definitely guilty of as a native Californian is "no
yea" for "yes" and "yea no" for "no". I do it without thinking all the time
and am always shocked that no one ever questions what I mean.

~~~
meej
the lexicon valley podcast did an episode on this.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/06/yeah_no_lexicon_valley_slate_podcast.html)

(the discussion starts a bit before six minutes in)

------
benbreen
I'm not Texan but lived in Austin for 8 years and found that this had snuck
into my own speech without realizing it. I.e. I lived in East Austin and
saying "going out to Krause Springs" (west); "head over to Bastrop" (east); or
"go down to New Braunfels" (south) comes naturally to me now.

I'm curious though, is the phenomenon described in the article really a Texas
thing? Do people in San Jose "go out to Santa Cruz" and "go over to Yosemite"?

~~~
qbrass
Up and Down aren't. They're map relative and pretty common.

Some places had a history of south-oriented maps so they may call south up and
north down.

~~~
en4bz
On Prince Edward Island (PEI) phrases like 'Up West' and 'Down East' are the
norm which seems pretty weird at first. But once you look at the orientation
of the island on a map [1] it starts to make some sense.

Basically people think of the island as being laid out East to West but in
reality the island is rotated ~45 degrees on the actual map. So West is really
North-West and East is South-East. This leads to people combining the usual
North = Up and South = Down with East-West qualifiers.

[1]
[https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Prince+Edward+Island/@46.64...](https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Prince+Edward+Island/@46.6460952,-65.3567529,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4b5e52ddd47f83c5:0xa968d6d5f4926686!8m2!3d46.510712!4d-63.4168136)

~~~
wffurr
The "down" in "Down East" actually refers to downwind, as in a sailing
direction. The prevailing winds in the area in the summer are form the
southwest. So to go to Maine from Boston, one would sail "down"(wind) and
east. Likewise from Maine to PEI, it would be "down"(wind) and east.

------
zwieback
I thought that was universal, for me it's up to Portland, down to Eugene, out
to Newport (coast), over (the mountains) to Bend.

My kids, who are just starting to drive, don't know their compass directions
that well (and maybe never will, thanks to GPS) so they say wrong things like
"up to California".

~~~
wink
Not a native English speaker, but living (relatively) close to the Alps, and
I've definitely heard "up" meaning "towards the mountains into higher
regions".

On the other hand, without thinking about it too long "out" means "to the
countryside, out of town", "over" is mostly east/west and "in" is definitely
the city centre.

"Down" is the odd one out, I can't pinpoint a direction.

~~~
zwieback
Agree with hibbelig, I grew up in Germany (Stuttgart) and I think compass
directions aren't as popular as here in the US. Maybe because all the roads
are so twisty, even in the cities, that nothing goes in one direction for very
long. We definitely went "down" to the city center because it was at a much
lower elevation than our neighborhood.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Was talking with a Japanese friend the other day and had a great conversation
trying to nail down the meanings of over by, out near, up there, down by, etc,
using local landmarks.

The Japanese equivalents are ここ、そこ、あこ, meaning respectively "here", "there
(nearer)", and "there (further)". There's also これ、それ、あれ, meaning "this", "that
(nearer)", and "that (further)". These distances can be both spatial,
temporal, and metaphorical. The distinction between them seems relative in
scale - if you ask for something to be passed to you at the dinner table, the
things furthest from you are あれ and the things closest are これ (the latter is
close enough you could reach it yourself). The neighboring town is そこ and the
next town over is あこ.

~~~
philsnow
I always thought the close one is used for things that are closer to the
speaker than the listener, the middle one is used for things that are more or
less in between the speaker and the listener, and the 'far' one is used for
things that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. can any
native speakers say whether there is any sense of that, or does it not have
anything to do with the listener?

~~~
glandium
Not native, but essentially, ここ is here, as in something close to the speaker,
そこ is there, as in something close to the listener, and あそこ is there, as in
something that is neither close to the speaker nor close to the listener.

Now imagine a variant of
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-kbBamg_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-kbBamg_U)
with the 3 words.

------
tbirrell
Up and Down, yes. Over and Out less so. The thing about more then two hours
being "to" is true.

I have a friend who always says "down" no matter where she is going. Dallas
and San Antonio and Houston are equally "down" from Austin. Drives me nuts.

------
S_A_P
I live in a suburb(using the term generously) of Houston. Its actually 40
miles from downtown Houston. It is southwest of the city, and when asked where
I live, I say "down in Richmond". As a native Houstonian, I can say that this
article rings true to me, but is becoming less so. Houston is actually quite
diverse and there is a healthy distribution of cultures and immigrants so some
of the Texas slang is fading. I think that Houston is a much better place to
live now than it was even 20 years ago, there is great authentic cuisine from
just about any corner of the globe available, and lots to do.

------
rconti
I once tried to explain to my French host family when I would use 'oh' versus
'zero' when describing numbers, but I couldn't come up with a rule. My phone
number has a 0 in the middle of the area code ('four oh eight') but elsewhere
in my phone number, I use 'zero'. I couldn't correlate zero-versus-oh to
position in the string nor what came before or after it. Yet it's totally
natural to me to use each in the 'correct' place. I think others do, too, but
I don't know if we have the same 'correct' place.

~~~
philsnow
for me I seem to say zero after numbers ending in vowel sounds:

    
    
      one oh
      two zero
      three zero
      four oh
      five oh
      six oh
      seven oh
      eight oh
      nine oh

~~~
bazeblackwood
Tommy Tutone doesn't follow your guideline:

> Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine

------
citationnerded
I was born and raised in houston and lived there for 15+ years. People say
these words, but know one I know of actually associates them with specific
cardinal directions. Up and down make elementary school sense and so likely
are used this way in most places... I am wary of out vs over though. But who
knows, maybe this is used explicitly by people in a specific region of
Houston. I grew up mostly on the sw end.

~~~
brosky117
I had the same thought as I was reading the article. My experience living in
Houston for a decade was that no one assigned any special meaning to "out" and
"over".

------
Cactus2018
Jerry Seinfeld talks about New York's "On", "In", "Off", and "Out" in his new
Netflix special:

[http://kism.com/400-funnies/jerry-seinfeld-talks-about-
livin...](http://kism.com/400-funnies/jerry-seinfeld-talks-about-living-in-
the-city-versus-on-long-island/)

------
joveian
I don't think I use any of those words directionally. I guess it is more of a
general directional awareness thing than really useful information to convey
in most cases. Similar to how some people might describe even the front and
back of a building with compass directions. Although I guess in cases of
lesser known destinations the general direction might be enough to prompt you
to ask if someone could run a quick errand for you or drop you off/pick you up
somewhere.

I use "over" to imply "right now unless otherwise specified" but it could be
anywhere. Although usually that would be implied by context so it is mostly
just an extra word. I ignore the other words when others use them (I would not
notice any particular usage) and might say some of them on occasion if I hear
enough people using one particular word with a particular place.

------
logfromblammo
I have never used "up" and "down" for north and south, but to be fair, that is
solely to be contrarian in the face of people who used them as synonyms for
north and south.

Of course, growing up in central Indiana, it was a long while before I even
knew what a hill was. People frequently used "up" and "down" directionally,
probably because they're nice and short, and there was nothing else to use
them for. There was no "over/out"-like distinction for east and west, though.
East and west were both "over". That might be related to the general north-
south orientation of the state, too.

...And it just occurred to me that north _actually is_ up and south _actually
is_ down in most of Indiana. All the rivers run south, to the Ohio, except
around Gary and South Bend. Facepalming at my teenaged self right now.

------
clamprecht
I haven't read the article yet but I'm fixin' to.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Sounds like a hell of a deal

------
xtalx
Too many people sleep on or disparage Texas, it’s such a
diverse/weird/surprising/sometimesDisapointing place. It’s definitely not some
place that can be categorized or disparaged with only a few words.
_Disclosure: I grew up in Houston_

------
pfraze
I grew up in Abilene. I figure west is "out" because it gets sparser and
dustier. Abilene is 3 hours from everything. I hadn't heard the east is "over"
thing but I guess it makes sense.

------
interfixus
In my native Danish, _up_ and _down_ are used fairly much as described in the
article, but genrerally only for smaller, provincial locations. From
Copenhagen I can go down to the southern part where I live, but from here I
can _not_ go up to Copenhagen. East- and westwise, I can go _over_ [exact same
word] to _some_ neighboring locations, though by no means all. As a native
speaker I know when and when not, but don't have a clue as to any formal rule.
No _out_. The west was never a wilderness to be conquered here.

~~~
Kluny
You can go up to Aarhus though, right?

~~~
interfixus
Interesting. I'm sure you can, over there on the mainland. But to my somewhat
more easterly attuned ears, it doesn't sound quite right.

~~~
Kluny
Hmm, are you from Als?

~~~
interfixus
No, easterly. Bottom right corner of the map.

~~~
Kluny
Oh, I see, it'd be hard to go up to Aarhus from there. You'd be travelling in
several other directions first.

------
Intermernet
In Sydney, Australia we tend to use exactly the same nomenclature, but over
(East) is never very far. You might go over to Bondi. Out (west) tends to
include everything until the centre of Australia (going out to Bathurst, going
way out to Alice Springs, or even just going out west).

Up and down tend to extend the entire north - south distance of the country.
Up to eff-en-cue (FNQ = Far North Queensland) or down to Tassie (Tasmania).

I think the extended distances compared to Texas is probably due to the vast
amount of nothing throughout most of Australia.

------
air7
In Hebrew we use "up" and "down" to refer to permanently moving to Israel
("up") or moving from Israel("down"). These are such important social concepts
that there are nouns too: Someone who moved to Israel is an "Ascender" who
just did an "Ascent". In the other direction is a "Descender" who did a
"Descent".

------
hotsauceror
No discussion of our colloquialisms for measures of distance? "Over yonder" vs
"a piece" vs "a ways"?

------
gervase
As someone who grew up on the coast of California, I've used "out" and "back"
to refer to east and west respectively, but I don't think would be a
generalizable rule. For people who grew up on an east-facing coast, perhaps it
would be reversed?

As other commenters have stated, I would commonly use up and down to refer to
north and south.

~~~
kelnos
Heh, yeah. I live in CA now (for the last 14 years), but grew up on the east
coast. I still say things like "going back east" when I visit family.
Although, when I'm returning to CA, it's always "going back home", so I guess
I use "back" interchangeably and "out" not much at all.

------
heywire
Definitely not specific to Texas. I hear and have used "over to Columbus",
"down to Cincinnati", "up to Toledo" here in Ohio (that probably narrows my
location pretty significantly). Though I don't think I've heard "out to
Indianapolis", only "out west"

------
arcaster
As someone who grew up in ATX with family from originally from NYC, I have a
very unique and somewhat ephemeral "southern accent".

But I find myself talking the way this article depicted. Oddly enough, most of
the time people are either disappointed I don't have an accent or think I'm
from Chicago.

------
mirimir
I learned my English in Manhattan, and it was definitely "up to Boston", "down
to DC", "over to Brooklyn", and "out to Jersey". And "way out to Chicago", and
"way over to London".

------
unit91
TIL: not everybody talks this way. Y'all get it together! :-)

------
tomrod
Texan here. This seems pretty overthought yet incomplete. For example you
might here "We're going on out to Fredericksburg" from any distance except in
Fredericksburg.

------
jacobsohn101
In NYC, up/down indicates north/south in general.

However there are two special exceptions I can think of.

First special case is when New Yorkers sometimes talk about Albany (NY state
capital), we use "up state" in political context, even though Albany is like
in the middle of NY. But then again, "up state" can mean anywhere above NYC to
some New Yorkers...

Second is when we yell out "up yours, buddy". We don't mean north in that
context.

------
jenkstom
I disagree with over and out. Out means more rural, over just means to another
urban place.

------
d--b
Up / down is not confined to Texas. Think upstate NY.

Out and over is pretty cool though.

------
ianamartin
I hadn't really thought about this much before. I grew up in rural Texas
outside Waco. Up and Down are for sure aligned with the map. Over isn't
directional though. Out sort of is.

Over is something we used when the destination as specific to a person's
location. Go over to the neighbor's in any direction. But also go over to my
grandma's house. But if you didn't specify to her house, then it was out to
East Texas for the weekend, not over. We'd go over to Mickey's place for a
week, but out to Memphis. I'm sure this is not generalizable, but that's how
it works for me.

In general, out is anything that's kind of a pain in the ass, and over is
something you're a little happier about. And there's also the "in" to contrast
with "out." When I was growing up we went in to town. And back out to the
farm. And of all my strange Texas-isms, that's the one that gets me the most
shit from New Yorkers. I live in Brooklyn, and so I say, I'm going in to town,
when I go to Manhattan. And I'm going out to Brooklyn when I'm headed home.
And it makes people seriously angry sometimes.

Some of the other strange things I grew up with, that are weird even to me:

"Cut the lights on." What? That doesn't even make sense? You can cut something
off. You can't cut it on.

"I'm fixin' to . . ." mow the lawn, take out the trash, make dinner. Very
often used when someone is nagging you about something you are not really
about to do. You're just fixin' to do it.

"Let's get a colbear." It's a cold beer with the d dropped and a twang on the
beer and all said as a single word with the accent on the co. It sounds really
weird to this day.

We have really weird relationships with units of distance. We don't measure
distance in units of length. We measure it in how long it takes us to drive
there. I remember getting called out on this not long after I move to NYC.
Some people I met wanted to know where the hell Waco is. And I figured if they
live here and know any city in Texas, they will know Austin. So I gave
position relative to Austin. "Oh about 2 hours up from Austin." 2 hours what?
By subway? Jesus, that's terrible. I was like, "No, it's an easy drive. You
just get on I35 and your there. Hour and a half if traffic is good and you
speed a little." Finally had to break it down. It's a hundred miles.

Another related thing is that we don't think twice about driving distances
that would have other people looking for a plane ticket. Fun fact: it's a
longer drive from Texarkana to El Paso than it is from Dallas to Minneapolis.
It's just a thing we grew up with. We like our cars, and we don't mind
driving. I lived in Dallas for many years (and am about to move back soon).
And I would often leave work an hour early or so, beat the traffic out of
town, go have dinner with my parents and siblings (about a two hour drive),
then drive home after dinner (another two hours), and not even think twice
about it. Or if my brothers wanted to hang out and have some drinks, stay
there, and just drive straight to work the next morning.

Tea is a weird thing here as well. I love iced tea, but not the way I grew up
with it in Texas. I like what used to be hot tea, poured over ice until it's
freezing cold. And unsweetened and without milk. But in Texas, there's a
process for making sweet tea that's almost as intricate and cantankerous as
making BBQ. You boil a quart of water, add 8-12 bags of cheap black teabags
and stew those for about an hour. Take the bags out, and bring back to a boil.
Then you supersaturate this bitter cauldron with sugar until it's basically a
syrup. That concentrate is supposed to be diluted. But the problem is that
whenever you're having someone over for an event that would warrant sweet tea,
you're too busy making BBQ and doing last minute cleanup to dilute it
properly, so you throw it all in an 8-quart pitcher, fill it up to the top
with ice, and add some water. The restaurants don't do a much better job. It's
basically like mainlining simple syrup with dark color and a bitter flavor. I
hate it. But I'd be dead if I ever said that within state boarders.

And since I'm getting a little nostalgic, I'll wrap this up. I've heard before
that people who aren't from Texas think of our gas stations as grocery stores
and our grocery stores as stadiums full of food. After 3 years in NYC, THIS IS
SO TRUE! Nothing has been able to consistently frustrate me as much as trying
to grocery shop here. It is so unreal what people have to deal with. And then
when you go to 3 different hole-in-the-wall grocery stores (which may involve
multiple subway rides, carrying your loot as you go) just to get the
ingredients you need for one meal, the prices are so ridiculously high in the
stores, that you really haven't saved that much money over just getting crappy
takeout or delivery every night. Instead, you've wrecked your back lugging 80
lbs of groceries and wasted your weekend, and are pissed off anyway. I feel
genuinely sorry for people who live here.

------
tzakrajs
When you put something away in Texas you "put it up"

~~~
ssanders82
I think that applies everywhere...

~~~
Roedou
I grew up in the UK, now live in Seattle. I've never heard anyone use that.

My wife does talk about "pick up the lounge" though, to mean tidy it up & put
things away.

------
instaheat
I have lived in Texas my entire life. Currently in Dallas. Have traveled
extensively in the US and abroad.

In fact, I'm going down to Austin this weekend.

