Oh boy! Here we go again! The New York Times loves to make up terms for our beloved hometown – remember SoBo? And now a story posted on Monday refers to the people who live in Southie as “Southies.” But this is the part that has us scratching our head – when the New York Times started getting ripped apart on social media, the writer Julia Moskin said she confirmed with Barbara Lynch – Southie native, celebrity chef and subject of the story, that natives do call themselves Southies. “I asked B Lynch herself — she said ‘f* yes I’m a Southie’ and that was good enough for us.”
Well, guess what! Were were right – Barbara didn’t actually use the term Southie. After learning about the “Southie” incident -we realized there had to be a mistake and low and behold – there was a misunderstanding. According to the Boston Globe, Barbara denied using the term Southie to refer to herself. But of course being the lady she is handling the mess graciously. “I didn’t use the term,” Lynch said in a statement sent by a spokeswoman to the Globe. “But if we did start calling ourselves ‘Southies,’ I’d be proud to be one.” The New York Times reporter will be updating her story with the correction.
All we know is that no one refers to us as Southies – especially live long residents. We’re hoping that Barbara will come on Caught Up and explain to us what the heck happened – from one Southie to another.
By the way Barbara has a new book out – Out of Line: A Life Playing With Fire– and we hear it’s awesome. You should read it – we know we will be scanning the pages looking for the word “Southies.”
About 3 years ago, my wife and I were enjoying one of our frequent trips to Manhattan. We were eating and having a couple of drinks at Robert Deniro’s restaurant in Tribeca. The bartender picked up on our accents right away and asked us what part of Boston we were from and that he had lived in Boston for a bit before moving to the Big Apple. When we replied that we were born, raised, and still lived in South Boston his reaction surprised us both – He said, Oh you’re a couple of” Southies”. We both laughed and asked where he came up with term and he said it was based on the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood’s Irish – American gang known at one time as the “Westies”. That neighborhood, much like ours, has been undergoing gentrification. So, that’s the long way of saying, I think it’s a NYC thing.
Hi–
I read part of Barbara Lynch’s new book on the Amazon website. It looks like a cool book, and I’ve just ordered one for myself.