10 Phrases That Give Away Which Part of Ohio You Grew Up In

Ask for city chicken in northeast Ohio, and you’ll get pork or veal on a skewer, not chicken.

If you grew up in Ohio, you’ve probably said a few phrases like that without a second thought, and anyone from outside the state was left guessing.

Here’s what these sayings mean and where each one came from, from a Cleveland ballpark to a Cincinnati rally cry.

1. Beggars’ Night

Beggars’ Night is what Columbus calls the night kids go door to door for candy.

Westerville holds Beggars’ Night on the Thursday before October 31 whenever Halloween falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission recommended that Thursday formula.

In the 1950s, Columbus observed three nights: Halloween, Beggars’ Night and Penny Night.

On Penny Night, kids went door to door asking for pennies instead of candy.

Officials urged the community to cut it to two nights in 1956 because of vandalism.

Penny Night faded away soon after that.

If you grew up in the Columbus area back then, you might remember collecting pennies.

2. Mistake on the Lake

Mistake on the Lake is a Cleveland nickname that first appeared in print in May 1964.

It began as a comeback to “The Best Location in the Nation,” a 1944 campaign from Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.

The line gained wider use after the 1969 river fire and was a regular Cleveland nickname through the 1970s and 1980s.

After the fire, many of the city’s jokes came from comics who wrote for television.

Municipal Stadium was also dubbed the Mistake by the Lake in the 1980s.

You might have repeated it too if you lived in Cleveland back then.

Many longtime Clevelanders still do.

3. The Jake

The Jake is the old nickname for Cleveland’s ballpark, now called Progressive Field.

The park opened in 1994 as Jacobs Field.

The name changed in 2008.

Many longtime fans still call it the Jake.

You might need to translate when you tell a visitor you’re headed to the Jake.

4. Who Dey

Who Dey is the Cincinnati Bengals’ rally cry.

The Cincinnati Museum Center says the chant first began appearing among fans in 1980 or 1981.

A Dayton Daily News report used it in January 1982 to open a story on the Bengals’ Super Bowl loss to the 49ers.

The chant’s origin is unclear.

The two theories are the Saints’ “Who Dat” chant and Riverfront Stadium beer vendors yelling “Hudy.”

You probably know it by heart if you root for the Bengals.

5. City Chicken

City chicken is what Cleveland-area cooks call cubes of pork or veal on a wooden skewer.

There’s no chicken in it.

The name goes back to the Depression, when mock-chicken products cost less than chicken.

A lot of Northeast Ohio boomers still ask for it by that name.

You might have eaten it for years before you wondered about the name.

6. Old Coney

If you grew up near Cincinnati, you might call the Coney Island amusement park Old Coney.

The park opened on the banks of the Ohio River in June 1886.

It began as Ohio Grove.

Its owners advertised it as “The Coney Island of the West,” after the resort in Brooklyn.

7. Put That Up

Put that up is what some people say to get kids to clean up toys.

It means put it away.

A 2021 Mahoning Matters column by Liz Dreier lists it as an Ohio phrase.

Some out-of-staters hear it as an order to lift something up.

If you heard it growing up, you know what it meant.

8. Appalachian Mangoes

Appalachian mangoes is a name people in southeast Ohio might use for pawpaws.

The fruit is often described as a mix between a banana and a mango.

Peak pawpaw harvest in Ohio comes in mid-September.

Pawpaws bruise easily.

They don’t ship well, so you rarely find them in big-box grocery stores.

People who already know pawpaws might forage for them, grow a tree or get some from a friend.

If you grew up in the southeast, you might have eaten one.

9. Dead Man’s Curve

Dead Man’s Curve is the Cleveland name for the bend in Interstate 90 just east of downtown.

The name appears on T-shirts and makes some 16-year-olds rethink getting a license.

Drivers have been wary of the curve since 1959.

Accidents in the early 1960s led to lights, rumble strips and a lower speed limit.

Cleveland Magazine’s 2019 review of a decade of Ohio Department of Transportation crash data found zero deaths and 150 injuries in 526 crashes.

More than half of those crashes were rear-end collisions or sideswipes.

Many Cleveland drivers first hear the name from a parent.

You probably know the bend by name if you grew up near Cleveland.

10. Rio Is in Ohio

Rio Is in Ohio is a line people in Rio Grande like to say to help others pronounce the name, according to an Athens News column.

Rio Grande is a village in Gallia County.

Ohio University’s journalism school lists the pronunciation as Rye-oh Grand.

Rio rhymes with Ohio.

If you read the name on a map, you might say Ree-oh instead.

Slogans That Faded

Cleveland's boosters wrote many official slogans, and several didn't last.

A 1974 campaign called "The Best Things in Life Are Here" aimed at corporate leaders, and locals didn't embrace it.

If you lived in Cleveland then, you might remember it.

The 1981 campaign "Cleveland Is a Plum" was introduced at a May 1981 Indians game, when Mayor George Voinovich made the first pitch with a plum.

It slowed to a stop around the mid-1980s.

The 1980s tourism campaign "America's North Coast" faded in the early 1990s.