Steve Wood, “How to Talk Like You’re from New Jersey” (Courier-Post, Sept. 25, 2014)
We’re not filled with self hate. We also have room to deride others.
“Shoobies” and “bennies” are terms held for unfriendly interlopers to the Jersey Shore.
“Never affectionately, always disparagingly,” says Ben Zimmer, executive producer of Vocabulary.com and language columnist for The Wall Street Journal.
“There’s a pretty clear dividing line on the shore where ‘Benny’ gets used and where ‘Shoobies’ get used,” he says.
The line of demarcation lies around the southern tip of Long Beach Island. Descending south of this point and typically from the Delaware Valley are shoobies, a term used since the 19th century, when Philly daytrippers could travel cheaply to the shore by train — with a shoe-box lunch.
To welcome New York outsiders, motorists as south as Asbury Park would sport bumper stickers reading “Bennies go home,” says Zimmer, a Jersey City resident. The mainly New York “Jersey Shore” cast only added ire.
Though the Jersey Shore culture is unlike any other, the tension between insiders and outsiders is replicated around the country, from Hawaiians toward white surfers to New Englanders toward “summer people,” Zimmer says.
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