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The most perplexing thing about New York English is the use of "on line" instead of "in line" when waiting for something.
by RandallBrown 6y ago
The most perplexing thing about New York English is the use of "on line" instead of "in line" when waiting for something.
- IIAOPSW 6y agoWell, are you standing on the line or have you been spaghettified?
- noncoml 6y agoI somehow knew this was a Seinfeld quote, specifically said by Elaine, before even looking it up. But turns out it isn’t. (Edit: Elaine, not Ellen. Thanks for the correction)
- IIAOPSW 6y agoThe character you are thinking of is named Elaine.
- nkozyra 6y agoThere's very rarely an actual line to stand on ;) "In line," meanwhile, suggests a line of people, any member of which is, well, "in."
- IIAOPSW 6y agoThere is a line you stand on, it just isn't drawn explicitly in ink or paint.
- nkozyra 6y agoIf there's no line then you're simply in a sequence of points. But if we get pedantic we accept this will never satisfy the definition of a geometric line and the Brits were right all along to call them queues.
- OJFord 6y agoYep, I think so. ;) You're always 'in the' queue (or queuing) though, not 'on' it. So if you must call it a 'line' or a 'line-up', I sympathise most with 'in'.
- bobbylarrybobby 6y agoI think it’s the same idea as being on a team, a board, a committee, etc, and not in one — on denotes membership.
- mroche 6y agoI thought that was a Jersey thing. Never came across it until college when a Jersey person mentioned it. Sparked a nice debate around terminology and pronunciation in the group (otherwise made up of MA and CT).
- RandallBrown 6y agoFrom what I could tell it's a NYC and surrounding areas thing. I knew people from Westchester and Long Island that said it, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if people from NJ said it too.
- frereubu 6y agoMy Spanish wife often mixes up "on" and "in" when speaking English because there's a single word for both in Spanish - "en". As well as standing "on line" like New Yorkers, she often "bumps onto" people - because "you don't go inside the other person's body".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- beezle 6y agoA line is one dimensional, to stand "in" line implies more there is more than one. Did a brief stint at our London office in the 90s and had a long debate with one of the locals about 'on' vs 'in.'
- GarvielLoken 6y agoPrepositions is an inheritable flawed concept in all languages, like on the train, on the station, in the square. It should ideally be replaced with some transport inflection and lacking that just ignored when it is used for common phrases and not actual space positional markings.