10 Things You Can’t Say About Pennsylvania Around a Local

Order a cheesesteak with Swiss in Philadelphia, and watch how fast the line goes silent.

Pennsylvania runs on unwritten rules, and out-of-staters break them within an hour of crossing the state line.

These are the things you can’t say about Pennsylvania around a local.

Wawa and Sheetz Are the Same

Say this in Pennsylvania, and pick your exit.

The state splits down the middle: Wawa rules the east, Sheetz owns the west, and families in the borderlands divide over hoagies and touchscreen menus.

Both are gas station empires serving better food than gas stations have any right to serve.

Both inspire loyalty that outlasts marriages.

Calling them interchangeable is the only opinion that unites the whole state, against you.

The rivalry even has its own geography: Locals talk about the Sheetz-Wawa line the way other states talk about county borders.

It’s Pronounced Lan-CAST-er

Lancaster is LANG-kiss-ter.

Say Lan-CAST-er, and every local within earshot knows you drove in this morning.

Pennsylvania towns run on trick pronunciations: DuBois comes out “DOO-boys,” and North Versailles rhymes with “sails.”

Nobody will correct you.

They’ll just repeat the name back, pronounced right, and let you sit with it.

Swiss on My Cheesesteak, Please

A cheesesteak takes Whiz, American, or provolone.

That’s the list.

There’s a rhythm to ordering, too: Cheese first, then onions, as in “Whiz wit.”

Fumble it, and the counterman won’t argue with you. He’ll just repeat your order to the grill, in a tone.

Ketchup gets tolerated.

Swiss doesn’t.

Pat’s and Geno’s have argued across the same South Philadelphia intersection for generations, and on this single point, their menus agree.

Scrapple Is Gross

Scrapple is pork scraps and cornmeal, griddled until the edges crisp.

Every Pennsylvanian knows what’s in it, and not a single Pennsylvanian wants to discuss it at the table.

The rule is simple: Don’t ask, just eat.

Crisp edges, soft middle, a little maple syrup if you grew up in the right county.

Call it gross before you’ve tried a proper diner slice, and breakfast is over.

Pennsylvania Dutch farm kitchens built scrapple to waste nothing on butchering day, and the recipe hasn’t moved an inch since.

Philly and Pittsburgh Are Basically Alike

Five hours of highway, two different planets.

Philadelphia faces the East Coast, while Pittsburgh spent a century facing the steel mills, and the two cities agree on almost nothing, including what to call a sandwich, a soft drink, or each other.

One end says “hoagie” and “jawn.”

The other says “yinz” and puts the french fries inside the sandwich.

Lump them together in front of a local from either end, and you’ll insult both at once, the only regional unity you’ll ever witness.

Pennsylvania Dutch Are From Holland

Holland had nothing to do with it.

"Dutch" here is a worn-down "Deutsch," carried over by the German settlers who filled Lancaster, Berks, and Lebanon counties three centuries ago.

Their language survives at farm auctions, and their cooking survives on every diner menu that offers shoofly pie.

If you tell a local the Amish came from Amsterdam, you'll get the sigh of a person who's explained this at every family wedding since 1985.

Jawn Isn't a Word

In Philadelphia, "jawn" covers any noun you can point at.

A sandwich is a jawn.

A parking spot is a jawn.

The Eagles' season is several jawns at once, some of them unprintable.

It might be the hardest-working word in American English, and telling a Philadelphian it doesn't count is like telling them the Liberty Bell is just a bell with a crack.

Yinz Sounds Made Up

Pittsburgh's second-person plural is "yinz," squeezed down from "you ones" over a couple of centuries.

It comes with a whole dialect: "Redd up" means tidy, "slippy" means slick, and downtown is "dahntahn."

Yinzers wear the label proudly, and a whole gift-shop economy runs on it.

Laughing at the accent is another matter, though. That's somebody's grandfather who put in 40 years at a mill.

Nobody in Allegheny County finds that funny.

Order a "pop" while you're at it, because asking for a "soda" west of the Alleghenies marks you just as fast.

Just Take the Turnpike

Suggesting the Turnpike as the obvious route tells a local two things: You haven't seen the tolls, and you've never met construction season.

The tolls seem to climb every year, and locals trade back-road detours like recipes.

Route 30 is slower, prettier, and free.

Pennsylvania has two seasons, winter and construction, and the Turnpike hosts both at once.

A local's route home involves at least two townships you've never heard of, and they will defend every turn of it.

Yuengling Is Just Cheap Beer

D.G. Yuengling & Son has been brewing in Pottsville since 1829, which makes it America's oldest brewery.

What happens when you ask for "lager" anywhere in the state? Yuengling arrives without another word spoken.

Calling it cheap misses the point.

Pennsylvanians drink it because their fathers did, at fire halls, wedding receptions, and Steelers tailgates, and the price is just a bonus.