15 Pennsylvania Quirks the Rest of America Will Never Get

A driver from Ohio waits in traffic in downtown Pittsburgh, ready to turn left the second the light changes.

It turns green, and three cars swing left ahead of her before the cars going straight even move.

Nobody behind her taps the horn.

These are the Pennsylvania quirks that take the rest of America time to adjust to.

1. Sheetz or Wawa?

Pennsylvanians pick a side before they’re old enough to drive, and the state splits almost down the middle over it.

Wawa built its following in the Philadelphia suburbs, and Sheetz opened its first store two hundred miles west in Altoona, back in 1952.

Neither side backs down.

Order a hoagie at either counter, never a sub or a hero, and nobody blinks at the word.

2. What’s a Yinz?

Head into a Pittsburgh corner store, and someone behind the counter might ask where yinz are headed next.

Yinz means “you all,” a holdover from the Scots-Irish settlers who filled southwestern Pennsylvania two centuries ago.

Not a typo.

Add “n’at” to the end of a sentence, short for “and that,” and a visitor loses the thread of the conversation completely.

Pittsburgh gift shops sell yinz T-shirts right next to the Terrible Towels.

3. Everything Is a Jawn

Drive three hundred miles east from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, and the local vocabulary changes all over again.

In Philadelphia, jawn stands in for almost any noun.

It’s a sandwich, a car, a person, or an entire building, whatever the sentence needs.

One word, endless jobs.

The word grew out of African American English in the city and slowly took over Philadelphia’s whole vocabulary.

Merriam-Webster keeps a formal definition of jawn on file.

4. Wine Needs Its Own Trip

Grab a bottle of wine at a Pennsylvania grocery store today, and the answer depends on which chain you’re standing in.

The state sold wine and liquor only through its own government-run stores from the end of Prohibition in 1933 until a 2016 law let grocery chains such as Wegmans, Giant, and Weis add a licensed wine counter.

Not everywhere, though.

Beer runs through a separate track, sold by distributors or from a bar’s takeout counter, never the wine store.

A dinner party can mean three different stops before anyone pours the first glass.

5. Pittsburgh Left

The light turns green in Pittsburgh, and the driver waiting to turn left often goes first, ahead of the cars going straight.

Nothing in the state’s vehicle code allows it.

Drivers flash their headlights or wave the other car through instead, an unwritten rule tied to the region’s hilly, two-lane roads.

Everyone just knows.

Try it in Philadelphia, and you’ll hear the horn before you finish the turn.

6. Scrapple for Breakfast

Pennsylvania Dutch cooks built breakfast around a loaf of pork scraps and cornmeal, and the dish never left the table.

German settlers carried the recipe to Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries, using what a butchered hog left behind instead of tossing it out.

Slice it thin, fry it hard, and pour syrup over the top.

Crispy edges, soft center.

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia keeps scrapple on its stalls year-round.

7. Yearly Inspection Sticker

Every registered car in Pennsylvania needs a fresh inspection sticker once a year, checked by a licensed mechanic, not a machine at the curb.

Only 15 states still require it, and Pennsylvania has run the program since the 1920s, among the earliest in the country.

Fail it, and the car can’t legally stay on the road until it’s fixed.

No exceptions.

Transplants from most other states have never had a mechanic fail their brakes on purpose.

8. Water Ice, Not Italian Ice

Order a cherry water ice on a summer night in Philadelphia, and calling it Italian ice marks you as an outsider fast.

The treat gets its flavor before it’s frozen and shaved fine, not doused in syrup after like a snow cone.

Big difference.

Rita’s grew out of one porch window in Bensalem in the 1980s and turned the local habit into a national chain.

The name never left Philadelphia, even after the shops did.

9. Sharing the Road With Buggies

Slow down behind a horse and buggy on a two-lane Lancaster County road, and nobody behind you honks.

Buggies use their own shoulder lane on the busier roads, and they carry a reflective, orange slow-moving-vehicle triangle on the back.

Easy to spot.

A horse pulling a buggy travels five to ten miles an hour, well under any speed limit on that road.

Pass with a full lane change, the same courtesy you'd give a tractor, and everyone gets where they're going.

10. Fries Go Inside the Sandwich

Order a sandwich at Primanti Bros in Pittsburgh, and the fries don't come on the side.

The kitchen piles french fries and vinegar-based coleslaw right on the meat, between two slices of Italian bread.

No fork required.

Joe Primanti started the business as a sandwich cart in the Strip District back in 1933, feeding truck drivers who needed dinner in one hand.

Primanti Bros has grown from that cart to locations well beyond Pittsburgh.

11. Default Beer Order

Walk into most Pennsylvania bars and order "a lager," and the bartender pours a Yuengling without asking which beer.

The brewery has operated out of Pottsville since 1829, making it the oldest brewery in the country, and the family that founded it still owns it.

Six generations haven't changed that.

Order it anywhere outside the Northeast, and the bartender might not even carry it.

12. Pretzels by the Bagful

Pennsylvania bakes about 80% of the country's soft and hard pretzels.

German immigrants brought the recipe to the region in the 1800s, and the bakeries never stopped.

Order a pretzel with mustard, never ketchup, and twist it apart the traditional way before the first bite.

Every twist matters.

Grocery stores elsewhere sell a soft pretzel or two.

Pennsylvania sells it as a food group.

13. Groundhog Runs the Forecast

Every February 2, thousands of people trek to a hill in Punxsutawney before dawn to watch a groundhog decide the rest of winter.

The tradition grew out of German settlers' Candlemas customs and turned official in 1886, when a local newspaper editor and a hunting club turned it into a show.

Phil sees his shadow, and winter runs six more weeks.

Every single year.

Pennsylvania takes a rodent's opinion on the weather seriously, and nobody in the state finds that strange.

14. Streetlights Shaped Like Chocolate

Drive down Chocolate Avenue in Hershey, and the streetlights overhead are shaped like Hershey's Kisses, wrapped foil and all.

The town installed 105 of them in 1963, after the chocolate company's president decided the downtown lighting wasn't sweet enough.

Fifty-four wear the foil wrapper.

Fifty-one don't.

Visitors stop to photograph a streetlight.

Locals just park under them.

15. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Alabama in Between

Ask someone from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to describe the rest of Pennsylvania, and you'll hear some version of the same old joke.

Political strategist James Carville popularized the idea while working a Pennsylvania campaign in 1986, and the version most people repeat today, Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in between, is a paraphrase of his original line.

Not his exact words.

People in the middle counties call the label unfair and use it themselves in the same conversation.