You can tell a lot about a city by the way its residents speak. The ever-colorful Bostonians might ask you to pahk the cah. A sassy New Yorker will tell you to fuggedaboutit! And a masked Detroiter may say something along the lines of, "Empty your pockets!"
South Florida is no different. Down at the tip of the Sunshine State, language is particular to each geographic region. For example, did you know that in Weston, a pile of dead grass is referred to as "entertainment"?
Words are fun!
And to prove that, here are ten things you'll hear come out of the mouths of a true Fort Lauderdalian.
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10. Hold on, I need to find my sandals. We get a lot of flack from our snobby Southern neighbors for our love of sandals, but let's look at the facts: (1) Jesus worse sandals; (2) in the event of an attack, you can kick them off your foot like a smelly missile; and (3) if you drop something, it's supereasy to pick it up with your toes like an adorable little monkey. Sandals are great! And no, I still won't apologize for wearing them to Great Aunt Gretchen's funeral. It was hot!
9. Sorry I'm late; I got the bridge Fort Lauderdalians got 99 problems, and a bridge is most definitely one. Those pesky little things always seem to feel the need to go up right when you're already running late to lunch with your already irritated girlfriend. Every one of us has used the bridge excuse, whether we actually did catch the bridge or just lost track of time finding out who the daddy is on Maury. But a true Fort Lauderdalian knows to always respect the bridge. One time, a woman from Dania Beach tried to take a shortcut home in Fort Lauderdale and ended up getting stuck 25 feet in the air on a drawbridge, hanging on for dear life like a cat over a bathtub. She did not respect the bridge.
8. Dude, that lizard's looking at you funny. If there's one thing Fort Lauderdale has, it's lizards. You can't take a single step outside without one of these rude little dinosaurs darting underneath your sandal. From the invasive Northern curlytails to the invasive iguana, all the way to your equally invasive 80-year-old neighbor who never wears sunscreen, Lauderdale is crawling with these leathery annoyances. And they're mean too! Iguanas always -- always -- be mean muggin', and I swear I saw one of those little brown ones letting the air out of my tires yesterday (the last part of that sentence will probably be repeated at the Thanksgiving dinner table by your racist uncle).
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7. Are they building another Chipotle? If there are two things Fort Lauderdale has, it's lizards and Chipotles. If only we could teach lizards to roll burritos, I feel like we could solve a lot of our problems. There are three Chipotles in Fort Lauderdale, which may not sound like a lot, but they're all within ten miles of one another, which seems like overkill. We'd complain if our mouths weren't so full of guacamole.
6. Was that a manatee? Everything kind of looks like a manatee when you've had six Bud Light Limes, but it was probably just an empty two liter bottle of Pepsi or a fat turtle (which also happens to be Rick Scott's safe word).
