10 Common Geography Mistakes that Washingtonians are NOT likely to make: 1) McLean – It’s pronounced MC-lane, City in the Virginia Suburbs 2) Bowie – It’s pronounced BOO-ee, City in the Maryland Suburbs 3) Grosvenor – It’s pronounced GROVE-ner, Bethesda neighborhood in the Maryland Suburbs and a stop on Metro’s Red Line 4) Silver Spring: It’s singular. Region of the Maryland Suburbs 5) Cardozo – Ends with a long O, not a short O. The D.C. neighborhood and high school are named after Francis Cordozo, the first African American ever elected to statewide office. 6) Highways – It’s I-95 and I-66, etc. “The 95”or “The 66” is West Coast talk! 7) The Smithsonian: It’s an organization, not a place. (You can’t “go to” the Smithsonian. You can go to any of it’s 17 museums, or the National Zoo, or the Smithsonian Castle, but the Smithsonian Institution includes all these places (and more). And it’s the Smithsonian Institution, not “Institute”. 8) Frederick and Fredericksburg: Frederick, MD, and Fredericksburg, VA, are 90 miles apart in opposite directions from D.C. and they fought on opposite sides of a war. 9) Capitol and capital: The Capitol building stands on Capitol Hill in the capital city, which is surrounded by the Capital Beltway 10) Airports: National and BWI, with all due respect to Ronald Reagan and Thurgood Marshall. The official names are used by weather reporters and travel industry professionals, not by real-life Washingtonians Finally, it’s not a “tri-state area. The District, Maryland and Virginia – two states and a federal territory are sometimes called the DMV by hip locals, but “tri-state area” makes you sound like a tourist from Connecticut. Giving Credit here to The Newcomers Handbook for Moving to and Living in Washington DC.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 22:16:59 +0000