OFDs want to get something off their chest

By adamg on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 9:02pm

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.

Neighborhoods:

Dorchester

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Comments

Anyone calling Dot The Chest or The Dorch

By Daan on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 9:33pm.

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.

Don't bogart that Dorch, my friend

By SwirlyGrrl on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:19pm.

Pass it over to me.

Dorch

By adamg on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:43pm.

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

"You rang?"

the Chest? WTF, kid

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 3:12pm.

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

Never.

If you are bent out of shape...

By formerlyTheSoBoYuppie on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 9:22am.

...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.

The difference is...

By Waquiot on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 6:10pm.

...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.

WTF?

By BB from Dot on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 9:40pm.

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

Que ????

By OriginalPatPayaso on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 9:48pm.

Je ne sais quoi???

The author

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 6:52am.

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

By anon_wd on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 2:55pm.

Does she call Somerville "The Merv"?

Absolutely not. I've lived

By Lowermills02124 on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:04pm.

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

That's the part of Dot with the valet parking, right?

By adamg on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:31pm.

Good call. Nowhere else

By Lowermills02124 on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:49pm.

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

My Dorchester roots go back to the 30s

By Waquiot on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:31pm.

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

By Murphquake on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 11:41pm.

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

That's meta-OFD

By Waquiot on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:23am.

You goin' way old school.

Dorchester history

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:51am.

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

I think

By dmcboston on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:02pm.

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"...

Roxbury is The Bury

By anon on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:32pm.

Dorchester IS NOT The Chest.

smh

But Roslindale is the Rug

By adamg on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:41pm.

Little known fact.

That's what my mom calls me..

By Murphquake on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 11:32pm.

That's what my mom calls me...

Other names for Roslindale

By Parkwayne on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:02am.

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

By Murphquake on Fri, 09/08/2017 - 11:31pm.

Us insider rats call it "The Datch"

No we don't....

But you're on to something

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 7:57am.

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

Reminds me of Improper Bostonian article

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 2:27am.

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.

Not DieChester

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 9:47am.

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

Not far from...

By Sally on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 7:37am.

Stab n' kill.

Ive heard numerous Dominican

By Anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 3:22am.

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

From OFD to CAD

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:21am.

Originally from Dorchester to Can't Afford Dorchester!

Amen. The comment though

By JustNikki on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 8:03am.

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.

I'm from

By Squiggly down under on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:32am.

Hingham. We call ourselves awesome. Ahem.

Might as well do so yourself, kid

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:18am.

Lord knows body else will.

Separated Shoulders Epidemic

By SwirlyGrrl on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 3:27pm.

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

Need to find someone else to pat you on the back?

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 4:50pm.

In order to heal the shoulder?

In Hingham that's called brunch.

Not from

By TiminCharlestown on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:52am.

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

The author replies

By adamg on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 9:34am.

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.

Oh.

By APB on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:21am.

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

By Irma la Douce on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:42am.

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

Or transients

By tachometer on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 11:10am.

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).

Lives At Risk?

By John Costello on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 11:25am.

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?

I stole your bike, kid

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 4:39pm.

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

The printed word

By tachometer on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 5:26pm.

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

Ashton Kutcher isn't walking out that door

By John Costello on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:22am.

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

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 3:15pm.

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

I've lived in SoBo all my

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:05pm.

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

And you take the ferry across the Harbs ...

By adamg on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:30pm.

To your job in EaBo, I bet.

Actually...

By Sally on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 7:39am.

he works right near Boston Commons.

Ferry into the Beantown every day?

By anon on Sun, 09/10/2017 - 9:33am.

Must be nice.

Encourage folks creating other lingo.

By theszak on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 11:53pm.

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

But if Worcester

By Daan on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 2:20pm.

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.

Because of the "H," right?

By anon on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 4:36pm.

Dorchester and Worcester are

By Cute Username on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 6:12pm.

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.

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.

OFDs want to get something off their chest

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