9 Maryland Habits That Cost Transplants a Strange Look in Every Other State

The Baltimore Ravens open their home schedule at M&T Bank Stadium on Sept. 20, and the Friday before it, offices and school hallways across Maryland will already be full of purple.

You can bet your bottom dollar that many Marylanders who’ve moved out of state will be doing the same.

These are the Maryland habits that get transplants a strange look in every other state.

1. Mixing up “The DMV”

In Maryland, the abbreviation “DMV” almost never means the license office.

Marylanders throw around the abbreviation “DMV” (Department of Motor Vehicles) constantly.

It usually means the region instead: Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia together, a nickname born in the area’s go-go scene in the early 2000s.

Ask that same Marylander where they renew a license, and they’ll point to the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) instead.

It’s never the DMV.

Other states don’t split the difference between the office and the region.

A Marylander explaining “DMV” somewhere else ends up needing two sentences instead of one.

2. Slipping an R Into “Wash”

Marylanders raised on the Baltimore accent add a sound to certain words that nobody taught them on purpose.

“Wash” comes out as “warsh,” and “Washington” turns into “Warshington,” a documented feature of the Baltimore accent linguists call Bawlmerese.

Nobody’s faking it.

Say it that way at a laundromat in Colorado, and someone will ask if everything’s okay with the machine.

3. Down the Ocean, Not the Beach

A Marylander doesn’t say they’re going to the beach.

They describe it as headed “down the ocean,” pronounced closer to “downy ocean,” almost always meaning Ocean City on the Eastern Shore.

The phrase skips past “to” and “the”.

Out-of-staters always catch it.

Say it in a landlocked state, and the question comes back fast: Down which ocean?

4. Ordering a Natty Boh at the Bar

Maryland drinkers order National Bohemian beer by its nickname, Natty Boh, without stopping to explain what it is.

Nearly 90% of the beer sold in the country never leaves Maryland.

The majority of that stays inside Baltimore.

That’s not a coincidence.

Natty Boh’s cartoon mascot, Mr. Boh, still shows up on murals, T-shirts, and bar signs across the state, so ordering “a Boh” carries no explanation with it.

Distributors outside Maryland rarely carry it, and many bartenders past the state line have never heard the nickname at all.

5. Calling Everyone “Hon”

Marylanders around Baltimore call almost anyone “hon,” a habit that’s friendly, not flirtatious.

The word is short for honey, and it shows up at diner counters, corner stores, and checkout lines aimed at total strangers.

Baltimore built an entire festival around it, HonFest, which ran every summer from 1994 until organizers retired it in 2024.

It’s a compliment.

Outside Maryland, the word usually means something romantic instead of something friendly.

6. Wearing Purple Every Friday

Marylanders wear purple on Ravens game-day Fridays, a tradition fans call Purple Friday.

The habit started as a workplace dress-up push in 2007 and grew from there.

During the team's 2024 playoff run, Gov. Wes Moore proclaimed Purple Friday statewide, putting the state's name behind a tradition fans had already kept for years.

That proclamation covered one playoff run, not a standing law.

Few offices outside Maryland dress for football on a schedule.

Coworkers there still notice purple head to toe.

7. Timing a Trip Around the Bay Bridge

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge dictates road-trip timing for Marylanders the way rush hour does everywhere else.

The bridge carries every car headed to the Eastern Shore or Ocean City.

The Maryland Transportation Authority posts day-by-day advisories recommending early morning or evening crossings, and the recommended window shifts depending on the day of the week.

Many Marylanders check that page before a long weekend, even after making the trip a hundred times.

A friend in Kansas has never had to plan a drive around one bridge's traffic pattern.

8. Wearing the State Flag on Everything

Maryland's state flag shows up on shorts, socks, bikinis, and car decals across the state.

The black-and-gold, red-and-white pattern shows up on gear the way a sports logo would anywhere else, a trend traced partly to Under Armour's 2010 deal to put the flag on University of Maryland football uniforms.

Nobody blinks.

That same pattern shows up nowhere else, and a stranger always assumes it's a sports team's colors, not a state flag.

9. Ordering a Snowball With Marshmallow on Top

Marylanders ordering a Baltimore snowball skip a question everyone else has to ask out loud.

A classic Baltimore snowball comes soaked in egg custard syrup and finished with a scoop of marshmallow on top.

Locals ask for "marshmallow on top" the same way they'd ask for napkins, assuming the stand already knows what that means.

Outside Maryland, that assumption doesn't hold.