Attraction Abbreviations

We got a cool letter from Charlotte Reinick in Alexandria, Virginia.

She works with the National Park Service.

She’s not a part of it, but she works with them a lot.

And she was talking about some of the lingo that they use to describe different places around Washington.

For example, Ford’s Theater.

They call that Foth, F-O-T-H.

Okay.

They take the first two letters of each of those words.

She says the Peterson House is across the street from Foth.

It’s the house where Lincoln actually died after being shot in the theater.

And naturally, it is called Peehoe, which sounds like a flowering shrub or perhaps a wee species of shorebird.

And then the Washington Monument, she says, is referred to by all and sundry, aloud and without irony, as Wham-O.

Wham-O.

Yeah, like the Frisbee manufacturer.

She says, I dissolve into giggles every time someone says this.

No one seems to understand why.

I’ve been to Wham-O.

I’ve been up in Wham-O.

I’ve never been up in it.

Oh, you’ve never been up in Wham-O?

Never been up in the Arch.

Never been up in the Statue of Liberty.

Oh, yeah.

Never been up in, well.

What do they call that?

The S?

There must be a name for the Statue of Liberty, right?

There must be, but it’s really unusual to have that form of abbreviation.

Usually it’s the first letter.

Yeah.

And to have it institutionalized is really rare, right?

Yeah.

I thought it was really cool.

Cool.

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