The first time I ever heard a Pittsburgh accent was in 2001 while working concessions at a Greensburg, Pa. movie theater. I can’t remember the exact context, but it was somewhere along the lines of, “Yinz got root beer?” Despite being from north central Pa. and living my entire life in our proud commonwealth, I had never experienced a true yinzer, someone who, unlike the hipster transplants who would come to adopt and, in many cases, exploit Pittsburgh slang, unironically used terms like “gucchies” and “nebby.”
Over the years, however, I learned that the colloquial pseudo-language many refer to as Pittsburghese is not homogeneous. For example, a friend who grew up in North Huntingdon recalled how her mom called credit cards “charge-a-plates,” something that no other living human, as far as I can tell, does.
I thought of this while leafing through Sam McCool’s New Pittsburghese: How to Speak Like a Pittsburgher. Published by Goodwill Industries in 1982, the booklet uses a dictionary-like approach to cover the ins and ahts of yinzer speak.
What struck me about this weird little handbook, laid out alphabetically and with humorous illustrations, was how unfamiliar some of the entries were to me, someone who has lived in Pittsburgh for over 20 years. Amongst the many, many instances of replacing “o”s with “ah”s were “onion snow” (defined as a “light, late spring snow”), “carbon oil” (another word for kerosene), and “carline” (streetcar or trolley tracks). Others include using “gommed up” to describe dirty kids, “grinny” as an alternative for chipmunk, and “hap” for a blanket.
The Pittsburgh City Paper staff members who had grown up in and around the area even seemed perplexed as I read some of the more curious lingo. Even our Director of Operations, Kevin, by far the most yinzer of our crew, shook his head at some of the entries.
Being that the book was published over four decades ago, it’s safe to assume that some of these terms have gone extinct. This book also came out long before Pittsburgh started topping lists as the country’s most livable city and a desirable travel destination, back when its post-industrial economic decline and soot-strewn history made it the butt of jokes. It was seen as a filthy, rough, Rust Belt mill town devoid of culture (despite its world-class universities and museums), populated by uneducated, ill-mannered sports fanatics who talked funny. (This isn’t an exaggeration — I can’t tell you how many of my out-of-town visitors, including my own sister, expressed surprise at how “clean” Pittsburgh is, as if they expected one big burning tire fire).
Given that many U.S. citizens in the early 1980s likely never traveled to Pittsburgh due to its bad reputation and perceived lack of attractions, they would have no idea how anyone here actually talked. On that note, the author could have easily made shit up, and no non-Yinzer would be the wiser. I imagine out-of-state ‘80s yuppies chortling at this book while enjoying their cottage cheese and Tab, never once questioning its validity.
That the bulk of the book contains mostly yinzer pronunciations of existing words, not original expressions specific to the Pittsburgh area, makes it appear as though the author was likely desperate to fill the nearly 40 pages. That being said, it also makes some glaring omissions, including the word most commonly used to define native Pittsburghese speakers — instead of “yinz,” knowing readers are met with “yunz.” Also missing is “n’at,” an amusing catch-all that even City Paper is guilty of overusing.
In all fairness, “yunz” does have its place in the annals of yinzerisms, described in a 2001 Carnegie Mellon University paper as one of many variations of the second-person plural pronoun. In trying to explain the inconsistency related to what is arguably Pittsburgh’s most recognizable slang term, besides “jagoff,” the same paper cites McCool and a CMU English professor, both of whom hypothesize that the city’s move towards a white collar economy may have influenced the evolution of Pittsburghese, as eds and meds overwhelmingly replaced steel mills.
However, Pittsburghese does not stop at Pittsburgh, extending into other parts of southwestern Pa., as illustrated by my Greensburg movie theater story. Some of the less familiar terms are likely still utilized by descendants of families who have been in the Pittsburgh area for generations. With that in mind, perhaps this book serves as a deep dive into Pittsburghese, providing a more nuanced and comprehensive guide that goes beyond “redd up” and “chipped chopped ham,” and a glimpse into language not widely used since Pittsburgh’s industrial peak.
