There are times when you don't see something until you are detached from it. The proverbial, not seeing the trees for the forest. That happened to me just this morning. I was reading a blog, written by a friend of mine, as I do every morning. She writes about my old hometown, as she still lives there. In one line she says, we don't go to the village on the weekends. The little thing that jumped out at me was the use of the word village. I had never given that any thought before. I grew up in town and we went to the village. Said that way it now sounds like I lived in some foreign land. There are villages in the jungle and villages in Transylvania, the villagers went after the monster.
I did a little research and have discovered that many states have villages. There are incorporated villages and non-incorporated. Most, but not all villages are inside a town. Towns can be inside a city. Interesting. The thing is in all the other areas of the this country I have lived, I have never heard others saying, let's go or not go to the village. I expect they must. I would think, especially in the new England area that it would be common.
Now in East Hampton , the town where I was raised I did not live in the village. Those that did we didn't call villagers. We called them uptowners. Sometimes they were upstreeters. They were never Villagers. I went to school with those people and it never occurred to me that they were Villagers ! A little scary now that I think about it. We often said we were going upstreet and that may or may not include the village. We did have our own unique name for a business area in town that was not part of the village. That area was referred to as the hook. Why it was called that is open for debate and a topic of discussion. But I have wandered of the subject at hand. What I was wondering about was the use of the word village. As I said we used it all the time but now I seldom hear it. So infrequently in fact that it drew my attention. The use of that phrase is now a bit of nostalgia for me. Now, isn't that interesting ? Have I grown so old and become so distant from my ancestral roots that it is nostalgic ? Hmm. Much has been written of a dialect that East Hampton town is known for. Some say I speak that dialect and I suppose I do, marginally so. I only do that when speaking to another that understands that dialect. Saying I'm going to the village never seemed like part of that dialect.
I will be listening from now on. Who else says they are going to the village ? Surely there are others that use that phrase other than in the movies. There are a lot of villages in the world. When someone says, village, what image comes to mind ?
I did a little research and have discovered that many states have villages. There are incorporated villages and non-incorporated. Most, but not all villages are inside a town. Towns can be inside a city. Interesting. The thing is in all the other areas of the this country I have lived, I have never heard others saying, let's go or not go to the village. I expect they must. I would think, especially in the new England area that it would be common.
Now in East Hampton , the town where I was raised I did not live in the village. Those that did we didn't call villagers. We called them uptowners. Sometimes they were upstreeters. They were never Villagers. I went to school with those people and it never occurred to me that they were Villagers ! A little scary now that I think about it. We often said we were going upstreet and that may or may not include the village. We did have our own unique name for a business area in town that was not part of the village. That area was referred to as the hook. Why it was called that is open for debate and a topic of discussion. But I have wandered of the subject at hand. What I was wondering about was the use of the word village. As I said we used it all the time but now I seldom hear it. So infrequently in fact that it drew my attention. The use of that phrase is now a bit of nostalgia for me. Now, isn't that interesting ? Have I grown so old and become so distant from my ancestral roots that it is nostalgic ? Hmm. Much has been written of a dialect that East Hampton town is known for. Some say I speak that dialect and I suppose I do, marginally so. I only do that when speaking to another that understands that dialect. Saying I'm going to the village never seemed like part of that dialect.
I will be listening from now on. Who else says they are going to the village ? Surely there are others that use that phrase other than in the movies. There are a lot of villages in the world. When someone says, village, what image comes to mind ?
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