Oh, brother. I -- like everyone else in the Bay Area -- also say "the East Bay", "the Peninsula", "the North Bay", "the South Bay" and "the Central Valley" --

Oh, brother. I -- like everyone else in the Bay Area -- also say "the East Bay", "the Peninsula", "the North Bay", "the South Bay" and "the Central Valley" -- even though all of these things are just nouns with minimal adjectives that aren't unique to the Bay Area. (Hell, even "Bay Area" isn't unique to the Bay Area.) So yes, I (again, like everyone around here) say "the City" -- and I know that New Yorkers and Londoners and many others say the same when they're talking about their burg. But this story wasn't a story about New York or London or whatever -- it was about San Francisco, which to me is the City. And if you can find it within yourself to abide my my use of the City in this context, I'll return the favor when we're talking about where you live by letting you refer to it as you do!