Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Overheard


I covered a lot of miles on my 4-day weekend, traveling to visit and invest in the success of a variety of different retail establishments. I did my part to shore up the economy. While I was shopping, quietly perusing my options and doing calculations in my head (always tricky and requiring concentration), I heard someone say "Yep, I sure did it, bigger'n Dallas."

I just nodded my head, and continued on my way. To translate, "bigger'n" is a contraction of "bigger than" and I've heard this saying many, many times. But I am from around here. I'm curious. Do other people from other places say "bigger'n Dallas" to indicate something very large and very obvious?

This reminded me of a conversation Susan and I had with an Australian designer at Quilt Market. She had just come to Houston from Dallas and was saying how nice it was to be in a small city (Dallas) like the one she lives in. We laughed and I think I said something like she might think she stepped back in time to come to Little Rock. She definitely would not get why "bigger'n Dallas" would mean something. For a couple of reasons probably.

So I did some statistical research to see just how big Dallas is and whether it truly qualifies for a "bigger'n" comparison. I think it does. Dallas is the ninth-largest city in the US. If any of y'all who aren't from around here would like to pick up the saying, just be sure to run together "bigger" and "than" because it'll just lose some of the flavor if you don't.


Dallas population: 6 million
Memphis population: 1.3 million
Little Rock population: 650,000
Conway/Faulkner county population: 57,000 (where I heard "bigger'n Dallas")
Benton population: 27,000 (where I live. More on Mayberry later, but at least we still have free liberry cards around here and yes, I know how to spell and say it properly. It's just one of those words I like to be improper with.)



Photo is from StevenM_61's Flickr albums

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