Photo by JC Dill courtesy Language Log
See this post from the distinguished (really) Language Log blog, written by linguistics scholars and read by really smart and nerdy people.
For the record, I don’t use a definite article when referring to [the] Muni.
For the record, we don’t either. But we see both sides of the argument: Using “the” is harmless enough. And there is only one Muni, right? Man, if there’s another one, we really hope someone would’ve let us know.
The item we refuse to budge on is the all-caps version: “MUNI.” Muni is an abbreviation, not an acronym, mkay?
Nothing like a little grammar to get your day started …
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Written by Patricia
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I have been seeing these around town, and the thing that irritated me about them is how they’re just another example of some big corporation/bank trying to act like they’re all “down with the locals.” Nobody that I know says “the Muni” or “the BART.” Okay…maybe I’ve heard one or two people call it “the Muni” (usually if they are new to SF), but for real I don’t know anyone who lives in the Bay Area who says “I’m going to take the BART,” or “I’m waiting for the BART.”
But I will see what these linguists have to say.
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People from southern California say “the” in front of road names, and when they move to places with public transit they adapt the habit to those systems too.
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Oh man, I’ve noticed that and I thought I was making a huge deal of it in my head and that it wouldn’t grate on anyone else. I want to cross out the “the” on all of them!
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verbalcupcake Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 9:01 am
Haha-Kristin, I had the same experience! It doesn’t help that one of these is right in front of my apartment, so I see it every day.
What’s funny is when I clicked over to read the linguists’ post, I saw that the submitter was equally annoyed, and for the same reason! Love it!
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I’m from SoCal–yes, “the” goes in front of the freeways and such (“I’m going to take the 8 to the 163.”), but that habit did not translate to public transit for me. And I have found that people who move here drop “the” for transit pretty quick, if they do it at all.
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Sus Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Yup, same here…to me it will always be the 5, but it never occurred to me to say the Muni.
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In Boston, they refer to their system as “the T”.
When I saw these ads, I wondered if there was a generic national rollout, where they just filled in the blank.
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Tara Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 11:31 am
The generic rollout kind of speaks to Al’s comment below.
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Hubby, a resident of SF since the 2nd grade to me, a resident of SF for the last (almost) 20 years told me that if I want people to think I’m from here I need to eliminate the “the” when speaking about muni or bart.
Peeling off the SoCal layers one article at a time,
Andrea
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Same here as the rest. No one I know uses “the” for either of those. I just assumed Bank of America used some agency from LA.
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In my role as Muni Diaries’ Twitter control operator, I’d say I see about 50/50 over those wires. Interesting. Does that mean about half of those who tweet their Muni experience are from LA or Boston? :P
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“The” seems redundant and strange, though I say that as a Bay Area native. NorCal people used to get SOOOO much crap in college for not using “the,” so maybe it’s more of the norm than the exception. You say take “the Subway” instead of take Subway in NYC, similarly to the T in Beantown.
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I’ve been ranting about this for weeks now. Wasn’t B of A originally from San Francisco? Their billboards shouldn’t sound like they were written by out of towners.
For what it’s worth, I use \muni\ and \bus\ interchangeably, so if I’m waiting at a bus stop for a muni bus, I’ll say I’m waiting for the muni, but if I’m waiting for muni metro, I’m waiting for muni. (I am old, we used to call the trains muni metro.)
But never, ever, ever am I waiting for \the BART.\
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I’m happy they did this. A little reminder that these companies really don’t give a crap about you, regardless of much they spend to pretend that they do.
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Love this discussion. I guess the words “the Subway” in New York have a clear connection to the physical train and tunnel system itself. When in NY, you couldn’t say you’re going to take “the Subway” somewhere and then hop on an M1 bus. And taking “MTA” oddly never caught on (with good reason). MUNI has somehow evolved to do dual duty here, trains and bus. BART is a less clear case because you could compare BART to the Subway. (I guess I call it simply “BART”.)
As the B of A part of B of A was born here, they should know better.
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jeff Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 11:29 am
JC! How dare you all-cap Muni! :P
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JC Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Darn it. Guilty as charged. The problem is that I really like what M*** has done to itself with their all cap retro logo. Seriously, get me one of those brown sweaters with a “MUNI” patch on the shoulder and my Xmas list would be considered satisfied.
Can I get a dispensation to use all caps?
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Not only did they put “the”s where they don’t belong, but I saw this same ad in an AC Transit Bus Shelter in OAKLAND, and it still said “the BART or the Muni”, even though Muni doesn’t serve the East Bay whatsoever.
I’m sorry, but whoever put together this ad campaign for the Bay Area is a total idiot.
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Can we be schizophrenic? I say ‘the MUNI’ when I am talking about the light rail lines (J Church, N Judah, etc.), but MUNI when I am talking about the bus system. I never questioned that bit of oddness before. I think it is the habit of ‘the subway’ that influences me to say ‘the MUNI’ when I go underground.
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In related news, there is an Allstate ad on (the) BART warning us that Philadelphia is one of the five worst cities for bike thefts. So I guess if you go to Philadelphia you shouldn’t take your bike.
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jeff Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
do you have a photo of the Allstate ad?
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Erik Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
It so happens that I do.
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jeff Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
care to share?
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Erik Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Email is the only way to get it from my phone right now so I sent it to muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com
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jeff Reply:
December 17th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Here’s the ad Erik is talking about: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hereandthereblog/5269113505/
Thanks, Erik. Also, WTF? Isn’t it a little late for SF to be rubbing shit in to Philly?
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A coworker of mine pointed this out while we were waiting for bus near The City Hall. We had just come back from a run to The Safeway to buy some of the chips and the soda. I don’t see what big deal is.
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Interestingly enough, the similar B of A ads in LA say something like “I can bank while i wait in line for the food truck” and “I can bank while I wait in traffic on the 405″. The LA County rail system is referred to as “the Metro”. Some ad agency is trying to make B of A seem more local and appealing and is probably based in LA and so didn’t realize SF Bay Area people don’t use “the” before freeways or transit systems.
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I’ve been thinking about posting about this, too! I say Muni, MUNI or BART, never ‘the’ either of them!
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I’ve always called it “Muni” from days when the logo was a roundel (circular) to the ribbon logo to the Landor squiggle.
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So it’s horrifying to say “the” before a freeway or transit system but it’s perfectly fine to say “the” before a district (i.e. “The” Richmond, “The” Castro”, “The” Mission , etc) ????? It”s all semantics and hypocrisy and people should not get so worked up about it. Calm down
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The 12/16 NYT crossword puzzle had this as a clue:
“San Francisco’s public transit system, with ‘the’”
lol
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jeff Reply:
December 22nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm
typical
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Made me think of this:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/google-launches-the-google-for-older-adults,5850/
And no. No definite article needed unless you’re talking about a particular line, i.e., the N-Judah or the dirty-three.
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Someone got the message, see: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3113
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