That’s It, Fort Pitt

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joe Messina from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Hi you Joe, welcome to the show.

What’s up?

If you haven’t heard, Pittsburgh is we’re we’re a hotbed of I don’t know linguistic abnormalities.

Yeah, Pittsburgh Ease has been well studied.

I think Barbara Johnson has done studied a bunch of it.

What’s the Pittsburgh Ease you want to talk about today?

Forks of the Ohio River where the Monongahale and Allegheny come together at Point State Park in town.

There’s a great museum and the outline of what was Fort Pitt, which was built around seventeen sixty.

And one of the things we say around here is when something is finished or when you’ve completed a task, you will end it with that’s it, Fort Pitt.

Or you’re unloading, and someone may ask you, Well, is that the last box?

You’ll reply, That’s it, Fort Pitt.

And I was wondering, is that unique to us, or does anybody in else in the country say those things?

I love it.

That’s it, Fort Pitt.

P-I-T-T.

So the same pit that Pittsburgh is named after.

Correct.

And do you have any idea where that might have come from?

I don’t.

I went through the museum not long ago, which again is is a terrific tour and we didn’t touch on it and nothing in the tour stood out to me that had to do with finality, except that it was built on the site of Duquesne Fort Duquesne after it was raised and the French retreated in Ducane.

Right.

Yeah, the Fort Pitt Brewing Company brewed beer there from 1906 to 1957.

And there was a slogan that became very popular locally, Fort Pitt, that’s it.

Meaning, you know, it’s the best beer you can find.

And so Fort Pitt, that’s it, became this little saying in advertising and over time some people picked it up as that’s it, Fort Pitt.

So the ad Martha was saying you found the beer, that’s the one, basically.

This is it.

This is the greatest beer.

Right.

Fort Pitt, that’s it.

And the researcher Barry Poppick found some early examples of that.

Somebody wrote in a in a chat group in 1993, I have an elderly friend in their 70s who constantly uses the phrase that’s it, Fort Pitt, as an explanation, particularly when completing crossword puzzles.

But it’s older.

We’re talking what, nineteen forties?

Well yeah, yeah, the advertising slogan and and I’m sure people just reversed it pretty quickly.

Fort Pitt, that’s it becomes that’s it, Fort Pitt, you know, I love it.

It’s so it’s this adorable.

I mean, I don’t mean this in a condescending way, but I like it.

It’s very adorable to have your own regional saying.

I it’s very cool.

That is a great piece of trivia.

Thank you.

Yeah, it’s wonderful.

I keep waiting for Dr. Robbie to finish a procedure and say, That’s it, Fort Pitt.

Maybe next season, right?

Yeah, next season.

That’s outstanding.

Well that’s what we know., Joe I didn’t mean to rhyme again, friend, but But that’s it.

Fort Pitt.

Yes, thank you both very much.

I’m completely satisfied.

And that’s that’s it for Pitt.

Excellent.

Thanks, Joe.

Take care of yourself and call us again sometime.

All right.

Awesome.

Thanks.

All right.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

But it does join this pantheon of other advertising slogans that became more than an advertising slogan.

We talked years ago about got the Mott’s about Mott’s apple juice and talking about more of something than Carter has liver pills, also from advertising.

And famous more recent ones like take a licking and keep on ticking or don’t leave home without Right, or don’t forget Claire Peller with Where’s the Beef.

Where’s the Beef?

Yeah, that one almost instantly entered mainstream language.

You know, not long ago I was getting into a hot tub and it was extra hot, hotter than I expected and I said who and then I immediately said to myself Smith’s furniture that’s who and everybody who grew up in Louisville Kentucky when I did will know what I was talking about because there was this ad for a furniture store that featured an owl blinking at you and it would say whoo and the announcer would say Smith’s furniture that’s who Oh, these are so common where we have these little lines and phrases that come from ads, either national or local.

And somehow they become part of our personal daily discourse.

Share those with us.

Words@waywordradio.org or tell us on the telephone toll free in the United States and Canada eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three.