North vs. Northern

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Renata Wilson, and I’m calling from Dallas.

Hello, Renata, welcome.

Hi, Renata.

Thank you.

Hi.

What’s going on?

Well, something that I thought of recently that I thought was very interesting.

In Texas, we always say East Texas, North Texas, South Texas, and West Texas.

And we normally use those words with cities, for instance, East L.A.

But I started thinking about all the other states, and I can’t think of too many other states that do that.

They usually say Northern California, Eastern New Mexico.

And I thought that was kind of interesting and wondered if there was any history behind that.

So what’s up with Texas?

Yeah. I guess we have to be a little bit different in everything.

Well, that’s true.

I wasn’t going to say that, but it’s true.

Since you said it, that’s a really good question.

You’re right, Northern California, Southern California.

I think of South Florida.

South Florida, that’s the only other one that I could think of.

Yeah, but you would say something like Western Massachusetts or Eastern Massachusetts.

Interesting.

Boy.

Well, let me ask you a question, Renata.

Do you think that there’s something more specific if I call a place West Texas versus Western Texas?

Does West Texas sound like it has borders or that it’s more formalized?

Well, we do have specific areas.

You know, like when they do the weather, they have certain regions, certain counties that fit into West Texas, North Texas, so on and so forth.

Is there a river?

Is there some kind of dividing line, like a river or a highway and everything west of that is West Texas?

Well, I don’t have a map in front of me.

I’m not sure where the dividing line is, but I know we have different definite regions that we consider being part of this area or part of that area.

Huh.

But you never hear Western Texas.

No.

We just never say that.

Do you think Western and Eastern are more sort of like West-ish and East-ish?

Do you think that’s the difference, you guys?

I mean, I have no idea.

I don’t know.

But it’s a great question.

I mean, I used to live in Louisville, and you would never, ever say I’m going across the Ohio River to South Indiana.

You would never call it South Indiana.

Right, it’s Southern.

It’s always Southern.

It’s the same in New Mexico.

We have Northern New Mexico, Southern, Eastern.

And on the weather, it’s the same.

They have, you know, four different regions, but we don’t call them East, West, North, and South.

Wow, so what’s up with that?

I think we can look at—

Yeah, I thought it was interesting.

Renata, if there’s some data that we can look at, and I’ve looked at this in the past.

Do you know what a gazette tier is?

G-A-Z-E-T-E-E-R.

I’ve heard it before.

So this is a list of places, and there’s one that’s put out for the United States and has a list of every place in the United States.

Pretty much any place that you can get mail sent to and many places that you can’t, it’s in there.

And if you look and you look up, like, say, north or northern or south and southern,

You’ll find that almost always, almost always place names that are kind of official,

They use north and south and east and west.

And then if you look, very few places will use Northern.

And in the whole world, in the English-speaking world, there aren’t that many.

I can think of Northern territory in Australia being a very well-known exception.

And so I think what’s happening is you guys are right, I think you’re right on the money.

Bernada, Martha, I think you guys are, Northern is descriptive.

It just says, I’m going to this place that is Northern of wherever I am now,

Or I’m talking about this place that is Northern of wherever I am now.

But if I say north, I’m actually talking about a place that has some kind of either actual geopolitical delineation or it is in the minds of all the speakers of the local language.

We know that when I say north Texas, I’m talking about a very specific ring of cities or counties or roads.

You just know because you’re a native and a local, you know, and it doesn’t require that there be a line on a map in order to make it specific.

So if it’s northern or southern, it’s just kind of that way.

Yeah, but, you know, you think of southern California, and everybody knows exactly which region that’s talking about.

It’s true.

It would never be south California.

Yeah, it’s true.

I mean, obviously, it’s not a clear-cut thing, but I think there’s something to that.

And I’m from Missouri originally, and we would never say south Missouri.

Never, never.

It would always be southern Missouri.

And even then, that’s not actually an area.

That would be just to indicate that you’re going to the southern part of the state.

There are areas without borders, like southeast Missouri and northeast Missouri are very specific areas in the minds of the locals.

And they think of certain towns being in those areas and certain towns not being in those areas.

And so a lot of it is whatever is the custom of the locals in terms of describing the area.

Language is just filled with directional information because it’s so important for us to know where we are and to be able to tell other people where we are.

So we’ve developed these customs that say that northern is probably going to be used in a descriptive way

And north is probably going to be used in a way that is a title or an official name or even a quasi-official name of a place.

Right. Of course, in Texas, you all have your own rules anyway about everything.

Texas is the big exception.

I guess.

Well, thanks for a great question, Renata. We’ll keep musing about this.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

All right. Bye-bye. Take care.

All right. Bye-bye.

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