Thursday, June 1, 2017

What Do You Call A Massachusetts Resident?

I knew that a person from New York State is called a New Yorker, a person from California is called a Californian, and a person from Texas is called a Texan. But what do you call someone who hails from Massachusetts or Connecticut? None of my dictionaries were helpful on this particular question.

So I finally consulted the ever trusty Internet to solve this mystery and learned a new word--demonym. 

What is a demonym?  It's a word used by geographers to describe where a person comes from. The website I consulted via my cell phone listed the demonyms for all fifty states alphabetically.

I learned that a resident of Connecticut is a Connecticuter and a person from Massachusetts is a Massachusettsan. Do the people in those states know this? The next time I talk to someone from either of those states I will ask them.

Here are some other demonyms: if you are from Iowa, you are either an Iowan or an Iowegian; if you call Illinois home, you are an Illinoisan (pronounced, I assume, Ill-leh-noy-an) or an Illinian (pronounced, again I assume, Ill-len-nee-an); a resident of Maine is called a Mainer or a Maineaker
(pronounced either Main-ah-ker or May-nee-ack-er). The last one sounds a little insulting. Maineite or Mainester might be better. And if you are firmly rooted in the state of Wyoming, you are a Wyomingite.

I now know --as well as lexicographers, I hope--what to call persons living in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

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