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OFDs want to get something off their chest

A few years ago, a self-proclaimed "Boston insider" wrote a book about moving to Boston. Seems fine, except as one Dorchester resident noticed the other day, the book declares that Dot residents often call their neighborhood "The Chest."

While newcomers will want to stay clear of certain areas of the Chest, several are worth considering, especially if you're on a budget.

OFDs and even DBCs find themselves amused.

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Comments

deserves to be covered in chocolate and feathers and marched along Dot Ave until reaching the Baker Chocolate Factory apartments. If some Dot rats are nibbling at their feet so be it. But Dot rats have more class than to use goofy names like The Chest, or god forbid (as I gag just typing this), The Dorch.

Pass it over to me.

Was Lurch's younger brother and replacement at the Addams Family estate.

"You rang?"

In 51 years of living I have not heard one relative call our neighborhood ' The Chest '.

Never.

...over people renaming areas to their liking than you must refer to this land as Shawmut and not Boston because if you don't you would be a hypocrite.

...screw it. If you don't know the history of Boston, you'll probably never bother to. Just move back to New Hampshire and leave Boston to people who care about it.

I am admittedly DBC, having only lived here for 30 years, but I have NEVER heard anyone refer to Dorchester as "the Chest"

Je ne sais quoi???

I'm not OFD, but I've lived in Dorchester for 39 years. I never once heard, or heard of, "The Chest".

From the author's Linkedin profile.

I'm a seasoned copywriter who can pretty much write about any topic thrown my way

.
With an approach like that, it's not surprising that she makes stuff up.

Althouth the book is supposedly about Boston, it also includes Cambridge Somerville and Brookline. And the author, according to Linkedin, lives in Arlington, and went to college in North Carolina.

So I'm going to go out on a large limb, and surmise that she never stepped foot in Dorchester. After all, according to her, it's one of the "dodgier areas" of Boston, only worth considering if "you're on a budget".

Does she call Somerville "The Merv"?

Absolutely not. I've lived here all my life Never heard that before; however, I did hear people trying to make ""Sodo" a thing. (south Dorchester) Big no

Good call. Nowhere else does valet parking screw up traffic.

And those phrases I've just learned tonight. Dot, Dot-rat, OFD, and I suppose DBC are ones I've seen before, but "Dorch" is brand new.

Oh, and Mattapan is just a part of Dorchester- that's how Dorchester I am.

Seekonk is a part of Dorchester. That's how hood I am

You goin' way old school.

Although it didnt include Seekonk, Dorchester included a lot more than it does today

included South Boston, Hyde Park, Milton, Wrentham, Stoughton, Dedham, Sharon, Foxboro, and Canton

http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=52

You can probably add Blackstone to that list. Maybe everything to the RI border.

Of course, back then it was all referred to as "The Chest"...

Dorchester IS NOT The Chest.

smh

Little known fact.

That's what my mom calls me...

L-Dale
Rizzledizzle
West Roxbury North
the Unrepresented Zone
The place that Staples and Petco ruined Forever
New Belgrade
RoLi
the 'Dale

Us insider rats call it "The Datch"

No we don't....

DATCH-ist-ah is the preferred pronounciation among us old timers in Dot.

From about 12 years or so ago that rote about gentrification in the neighborhood writing "no one ever calls it die-chester anymore." Having never heard that in my 30 years as a proud dot rat, I surveyed suburban friends who confirmed they, too, never used that term either.
Stab-and-kill, murder-pan, dot rat, etc. - all used. Not what was in the article.

I wonder if writers just make it up, or just rely on a terrible source.

But DeathChester was something I heard in Fields Corner in the 80s-90s

Stab n' kill.

Ive heard numerous Dominican kids call it dorchie in high school around 06 07

Originally from Dorchester to Can't Afford Dorchester!

Amen. The comment though about It's good if your on a budget. Well, she should try to afford it when apartments on Geneva Ave are renting for 2400 a month. Born and raised and proud of it! #02125 all day.

Hingham. We call ourselves awesome. Ahem.

Lord knows body else will.

There is a long-running epidemic of separated shoulders in Hingham due to frequent and vigorous patting of oneself on the back.

In order to heal the shoulder?

In Hingham that's called brunch.

My MIL is OG Upham's Corner and has never heard of the Chest. Where the F do people come up with this stuff?

Cheryl Little wrote the author, who replied:

Hi Cheryl, I had some friends who lived there while I was working on the book, and that's what they called it.

So obviously, those were either not friends, or they were friends with a Dorchester sense of humor. The kind who tell people who are eating lobster in the shell for the first time that the green stuff is like guacamole and tastes really good, so they spread it all around.

Writers need good editors partly because there are convincing smart alecks who love to make authors sound like fools.

2 editors are credited on the book's Amazon listing.

Since the author appears to have no real roots here it also could have been some friends of hers who were also only living here for a few years for school or something who put their lives at risk to take advantage of the cheap rents and easy subway/highway access that Dorchester offers.

Maybe they started calling it "the Chest" as a bit of a goof and she assumed that it was the local term. Granted, her editors suck because it shouldn't take much to uncover that this is not a local term at all (as social media is now proving).

Kind of a broad statement, don't you think?

I've been jumped in Cambridge twice. Had property stolen in Kittery, Beacon Hill, and Pembroke.

Had a guy steal tomatoes from our back garden on Ashmont once. I had my bike stolen from in front of the Adams Street library when I was 9. Is that what you were getting at?

You should have went ton the Codman Square library and stayed out of St. Ann's parish!

It was meant sarcastically but it doesn't always translate well when written.

I believe the author got punk'd.

OFD here (St. Mark's). No one I know ever, ever called it The Chest.

names, addresses and phone numbers of friends or it didn't happen!

I've lived in SoBo all my life and have always called Dorchester "The Chest."

To your job in EaBo, I bet.

he works right near Boston Commons.

Must be nice.

It's creative. A household uses other styles of jargon. Encourage folks creating and trying other lingo!

is pronounced Wooster then why isn't Dorchester pronounced Dooster? Or even Duster?

OFM (Originally from the land of Mary) even downie there Worcester is called Wooster and Dorchester Dorchester. But Dorchester County would never be called anything other than Dorchester County.

What's funny is that the county seat of Dorchester County is Cambridge. So take that Cantaibrigians of north!

Between Massachusetts and Maryland we have England all over.

?

Dorchester and Worcester are both more-or-less pronounced the same way as their English namesakes, (give or take our respective accents) and English place names tend to have a rather circuitous history. Plus I mean Dorchester has an H in it and Worcester doesn't. That has to count for something.

Good thing the author doesn't have friends in Worcester.

Just saying

Place names containing "Chester" go back to the Latin castrum meaning a fort, and "Chester" has been spelled in a variety of ways. Wikipedia says Worcester used to be "Weorgoran ceaster," for example. The word "castle" comes from the same root.

Similarly any place name ending in -borough, -boro, -bury, -burg, -burgh all go back to the same Latin root, burgus, another kind of Roman fort.

Before the printing press, people weren't too particular about spelling.

Worcester natives pronounce it more like Wister. We in Boston call in Wooster..

The Welcome to Dot twitter page is run by a Texan....he's not from Dorchester

I've corrected the original post.