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.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Anyone calling Dot The Chest or The Dorch
By Daan
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
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:19pm
Pass it over to me.
Dorch
By adamg
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
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 formerlyTheSoBo...
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
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
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
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 9:48pm
Je ne sais quoi???
The author
By anon
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.
.
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 2:55pm
Does she call Somerville "The Merv"?
Absolutely not. I've lived
By Lowermills02124
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
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:31pm
Good call. Nowhere else
By Lowermills02124
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
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
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 11:41pm
Seekonk is a part of Dorchester. That's how hood I am
That's meta-OFD
By Waquiot
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:23am
You goin' way old school.
Dorchester history
By anon
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:51am
Although it didnt include Seekonk, Dorchester included a lot more than it does today
http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=52
I think
By dmcboston
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
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:32pm
Dorchester IS NOT The Chest.
smh
But Roslindale is the Rug
By adamg
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:41pm
Little known fact.
That's what my mom calls me..
By Murphquake
Fri, 09/08/2017 - 11:32pm
That's what my mom calls me...
Other names for Roslindale
By Parkwayne
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
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
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
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 9:47am
But DeathChester was something I heard in Fields Corner in the 80s-90s
Not far from...
By Sally
Sun, 09/10/2017 - 7:37am
Stab n' kill.
Ive heard numerous Dominican
By Anon
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:21am
Originally from Dorchester to Can't Afford Dorchester!
Amen. The comment though
By JustNikki
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:32am
Hingham. We call ourselves awesome. Ahem.
Might as well do so yourself, kid
By anon
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:18am
Lord knows body else will.
Separated Shoulders Epidemic
By SwirlyGrrl
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 4:50pm
In order to heal the shoulder?
In Hingham that's called brunch.
Not from
By TiminCharlestown
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 9:34am
Cheryl Little wrote the author, who replied:
Oh.
By APB
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 10:42am
2 editors are credited on the book's Amazon listing.
Or transients
By tachometer
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 12:30pm
To your job in EaBo, I bet.
Actually...
By Sally
Sun, 09/10/2017 - 7:39am
he works right near Boston Commons.
Ferry into the Beantown every day?
By anon
Sun, 09/10/2017 - 9:33am
Must be nice.
Encourage folks creating other lingo.
By theszak
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
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
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 4:36pm
?
Dorchester and Worcester are
By Cute Username
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.
Worcester
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 8:25pm
Good thing the author doesn't have friends in Worcester.
Some great 'hoods in the Big Sauce
By anon
Sat, 09/09/2017 - 9:31pm
Just saying
Place names containing
By anon
Tue, 09/12/2017 - 2:33pm
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.
Wister
By anon
Sun, 09/10/2017 - 10:10am
Worcester natives pronounce it more like Wister. We in Boston call in Wooster..
Not a native
By anon
Mon, 09/11/2017 - 11:22pm
The Welcome to Dot twitter page is run by a Texan....he's not from Dorchester
Ah, so a DBC
By adamg
Tue, 09/12/2017 - 12:35am
I've corrected the original post.
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