Being a Yinzer

So one of the biggest problems with being a Yinzer in Philly is that many Philadelphians (how creative) don't know what a Yinzer is.  In all fairness, there's some debate amongst Yinzers as to who fits the definition.  Yinzer can be sort of like Canuck...you can say, "I like the Vancouver Canucks" and people will give you a high-five and then you can say, "Those drunken Canucks rioted in Vancouver" and you will be punched in the face.  Likewise, with Yinzer, you can say, "Yeah, he's a Yinzer...grew up dahn the run" and immediately you and your speaking partner can begin comparing the years you graduated from 'Dice.  Contrary, you say, "A bunch of drunken Yinzers" and offense is immediately taken.  As with both words, you have to be on the "inside" to have the privilege to use them and by "inside" I mean native...locals, maybe, but only after an extended tenure.

The definition of Yinzer to most is "someone who says Yinz", meaning they speak Pittsburghese.  Yinz is a Pittsburghese contraction of "yous ones" or "youses" - meaning more than one of "you."  Growing up, only my grandparents spoke Pittsburghese, my mother found it abhorrent and insisted that I wash my clothes, not worsh them and that I clean up my room, not red it up.  I went off to college believing that I had no discernible traits of Yinzer in me.  About a week into my upstate New York college experience it was pointed out that I said rad at the beginning of radiator instead of the proper long a as in radiate, I wore tennis shoes (even when going running), and my o's were quite nasally.  When trying to figure out who you are as an 18 year-old freshman, it's easy to want to be someone different than who you were in high school.  Most of the people I went to college with were from New England.  Other than a few die-hard sports fans (who knew better than to getting in a pissing contest with a Pittsburgher), most of my college friends assumed Pittsburgh was a dirty city, with no culture; just another mill town filled with people inferior to New Englanders (again, creativity points here).  If you've ever interacted with a large segment of New Englanders at once, you know, convincing them otherwise is nearly impossible.  In the end, I decided it was nice to be different from my classmates, I liked that my o's were funny and I thought the icy sidewalks were slippy not slippery, I enjoyed telling people they were nebby and even more so, I enjoyed explaining that meant. Looking around campus, where everyone resembled a walking version of a J.Crew catalog it was great to remember that there was a whole city that dressed exactly like me...in Stiller jerseys.

After college, the economy was pretty brutal, many of my friends and I were forced to move back home, where rent was free.  Many of us found jobs in the 'burgh and started to embrace what a wonderful place it is.  With my second "real" paycheck I purchased Penguin season tickets (which I still have).  I started to frequent the bars that my grandfather told me to never enter (of course Kelly's is no longer a cabbie bar, but a cool, trendy place for 20-somethings) and while Pittsburgh has a pretty solid economy now, my husband's job required us to live in a city that had more financial offerings, which is how we ended up in Philly.

So for me, Yinzer means Pittsburgher...someone who thinks the only appropriate attire for Sunday is a Stiller jersey, someone that can read, write, understand and (sometimes) speak  Pittsburghese, who has pride about the great city from which they hail and above all, understand being a Yinzer.