On vs. In
I was born on Staten Island but I grew up in Bay Terrace.
There are restaurants in Manhattan, some of them are in Greenwich Village and some are on the Upper West Side.
“In” versus “on” vis a vis location. What’s the rule?
I Googled and Binged the subject and didn’t come up with much. I guess most people are like me and they just play it by ear. It still seems very arbitrary to me and just so I make it clear that it’s not exclusively a New York thing, I’ll note that when I visit the Chicago one speaks of being “In Chicago” but if you go to Wrigley Field you’re “on the North Side” as opposed to being in an area downtown where you’re “in the Loop.”
Back in New York, you can be both “in Brooklyn” and “on Coney Island”.
In France you can be “in Paris” and “on the Champs-Eysee”, though I think the distinction there is that one is almost always “on” a particular street or avenue while “in” a city.
Still, none of this addresses one of the great regional linguistic conflicts: Friends and readers, when you are outside the movie theater waiting to purchase tickets, are you “on line” or “in line”? Depends on whether you’re in New York or out there in that land called America, I suspect. Back in those crazy, pre-Internet days “on line” meant you were part of a line of people waiting for something. You never were “in line” unless you “cut in line”; if you were a good citizen you got “on” the end of the line. As I got older and actually paid attention more to how people from other parts of the country spoke I noticed most people not from NYC referred to waiting “in line”, so I guess that’s the norm for out there in America.
Of course, many of the people who say “in line” also eat pizza with a knife and fork, so Americans aren’t always right. Just so you know, by “pizza” of course I am referring to fold in half eat with one hand type pizza, not deep dish or any of the other inventions that, while tasty, are not what I would call pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy a good deep-dish pie while in Chicago and I do eat it with a knife and fork (though occasionally instinct will take over and I’ll take a chunk of dry crust from the outside and dip it in the goop in the middle). However, in my mind it is a different culinary entity. Not better or worse, just different.
To be sure, perspective and background are important in matters like this. During my most recent trip to Chicago visited a casual wine bar called Quartino that advertised Neapolitan pizza. The Mrs. and I were knocking down some charcuterie and vegetable antipasti when a family of four locals sat down at the next table and ordered said pizza. A little while later the waitress brought out a thin crust margherita pie and set it on the table and the two kids stared at it like “what the hell did you just order for us, mom and dad?” Words were exchanged, and while I couldn’t hear the conversation but I saw both kids try a bit of the pizza (with knife and fork, much to my amusement) before pushing it away. The parents had a slice each and the rest of the pie went back to the kitchen. I drained another glass of the house table wine (good cheap wine, and no that’s not an oxymoron) and wondered how often that happened here on the corner of State and Ontario.
Hmm. “On the corner”. Why is it we say “on the corner” for an address but “in the corner” when a child gets punished, as in “go stand in the corner?” Actually I think I know the answer to that one: Generally a punished child is told to stand in a corner of a room. In other words, the corner surrounds the child. An address refers to a building and generally speaking buildings rest on top of land, hence, “on the corner.”
Unfortunately that rule does not help our “line” issue. Applying that rule to the line would lead to the following confusing mess: a person at the front of or at the end of the line would be “on line”, anyone in between would be “in line”, and anyway it could be argued that everyone waiting is standing on an imaginary path leading to the desired destination so they could be both on line and in line and that’s without even involving technology. Let’s say someone is waiting to buy movie tickets and they start surfing the web on their phone. Are they on line on line or on line in line? Adding some skates and you’ve got real trouble, because they’d be on in line skates while on line in line or on line on line.
I don’t think I’m going to get any resolution here unless some of you smart imaginary readers of mine plop some in the comments. Next time around I’m going to try tackling something easier, like the difference between catsup and ketchup. That’s an easy one, right there. What, you don’t know?
There are restaurants in Manhattan, some of them are in Greenwich Village and some are on the Upper West Side.
“In” versus “on” vis a vis location. What’s the rule?
I Googled and Binged the subject and didn’t come up with much. I guess most people are like me and they just play it by ear. It still seems very arbitrary to me and just so I make it clear that it’s not exclusively a New York thing, I’ll note that when I visit the Chicago one speaks of being “In Chicago” but if you go to Wrigley Field you’re “on the North Side” as opposed to being in an area downtown where you’re “in the Loop.”
Back in New York, you can be both “in Brooklyn” and “on Coney Island”.
In France you can be “in Paris” and “on the Champs-Eysee”, though I think the distinction there is that one is almost always “on” a particular street or avenue while “in” a city.
Still, none of this addresses one of the great regional linguistic conflicts: Friends and readers, when you are outside the movie theater waiting to purchase tickets, are you “on line” or “in line”? Depends on whether you’re in New York or out there in that land called America, I suspect. Back in those crazy, pre-Internet days “on line” meant you were part of a line of people waiting for something. You never were “in line” unless you “cut in line”; if you were a good citizen you got “on” the end of the line. As I got older and actually paid attention more to how people from other parts of the country spoke I noticed most people not from NYC referred to waiting “in line”, so I guess that’s the norm for out there in America.
Of course, many of the people who say “in line” also eat pizza with a knife and fork, so Americans aren’t always right. Just so you know, by “pizza” of course I am referring to fold in half eat with one hand type pizza, not deep dish or any of the other inventions that, while tasty, are not what I would call pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy a good deep-dish pie while in Chicago and I do eat it with a knife and fork (though occasionally instinct will take over and I’ll take a chunk of dry crust from the outside and dip it in the goop in the middle). However, in my mind it is a different culinary entity. Not better or worse, just different.
To be sure, perspective and background are important in matters like this. During my most recent trip to Chicago visited a casual wine bar called Quartino that advertised Neapolitan pizza. The Mrs. and I were knocking down some charcuterie and vegetable antipasti when a family of four locals sat down at the next table and ordered said pizza. A little while later the waitress brought out a thin crust margherita pie and set it on the table and the two kids stared at it like “what the hell did you just order for us, mom and dad?” Words were exchanged, and while I couldn’t hear the conversation but I saw both kids try a bit of the pizza (with knife and fork, much to my amusement) before pushing it away. The parents had a slice each and the rest of the pie went back to the kitchen. I drained another glass of the house table wine (good cheap wine, and no that’s not an oxymoron) and wondered how often that happened here on the corner of State and Ontario.
Hmm. “On the corner”. Why is it we say “on the corner” for an address but “in the corner” when a child gets punished, as in “go stand in the corner?” Actually I think I know the answer to that one: Generally a punished child is told to stand in a corner of a room. In other words, the corner surrounds the child. An address refers to a building and generally speaking buildings rest on top of land, hence, “on the corner.”
Unfortunately that rule does not help our “line” issue. Applying that rule to the line would lead to the following confusing mess: a person at the front of or at the end of the line would be “on line”, anyone in between would be “in line”, and anyway it could be argued that everyone waiting is standing on an imaginary path leading to the desired destination so they could be both on line and in line and that’s without even involving technology. Let’s say someone is waiting to buy movie tickets and they start surfing the web on their phone. Are they on line on line or on line in line? Adding some skates and you’ve got real trouble, because they’d be on in line skates while on line in line or on line on line.
I don’t think I’m going to get any resolution here unless some of you smart imaginary readers of mine plop some in the comments. Next time around I’m going to try tackling something easier, like the difference between catsup and ketchup. That’s an easy one, right there. What, you don’t know?
Comments
As far as lines go, I've tended to use "on" and "in" interchangeably (grew up in the NYC 'burbs) depending on context.
minion2