7 Things New Hampshirites Never Say Out Loud but Everyone Understands
New Hampshirites can pay a lot of attention to their bills without saying a word about them.
Plenty of things go unspoken, and everyone still knows what’s meant.
Here are the things locals rarely say out loud but everyone understands.
1. Flatlander Whisper
Natives have a word for anyone who wasn’t born there, and they hardly ever say it out loud to a newcomer’s face.
It’s flatlander.
New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed a longtime columnist who admitted natives use the word secretly, saving it for conversations after a newcomer has already left the room.
Transplants have caught on anyway and started wearing the word themselves, joking about the learning curve with a woodstove or a driveway buried in snow.
A newcomer just has to hear it once.
2. Unspoken Tax Trade
New Hampshire skips the two taxes many people notice first: A personal income tax on wages and a general sales tax.
Nobody finishes that sentence.
No other state relies on property tax this heavily, and New Hampshire’s share of local revenue from it sits at a nation-leading 61%.
Property tax bills run high in dollar terms too, averaging $3,388 per person in fiscal year 2022, the second-highest amount in the country after New Jersey.
Locals know exactly what filled the gap.
The receipt at checkout never explains where that money comes from.
New Hampshire’s Property Tax Paradox
New Hampshire’s heavy reliance on property tax doesn’t translate into flush town budgets.
New Hampshire cities and towns ranked 40th nationally in total per-capita local revenue from all sources in fiscal year 2022, about $5,076 against a national average of $7,021.
The state also covers only 23% of local government spending, ranking 44th in state aid to municipalities.
That property tax bill is filling a gap, then, not padding a surplus.
3. Massachusetts Paycheck
New Hampshire’s workforce doesn’t all work in New Hampshire.
About 12.5% of New Hampshire residents commute out of state for their jobs, more than four times the national average of 3.1%.
That’s a striking gap.
Many of those commuters cross south into Massachusetts, chasing paychecks that Boston-area employers pay better than Concord or Manchester can.
Nobody calls it a Massachusetts paycheck at the dinner table.
4. Highway Liquor Shrug
New Hampshire’s state liquor stores cleared close to $165 million in net profit in fiscal year 2023.
That’s the largest source of state revenue outside taxes, according to Business Review.
Many of the biggest stores sit at highway welcome centers and border crossings drivers can’t miss.
More than half of the sales at those stores come from out-of-state shoppers, and about a quarter come from Massachusetts alone.
New Hampshirites shop there too, filling the same tax-free carts as everyone crossing the border behind them.
Many locals, when asked why the lots stay full, just point to the prices.
Nobody adds that the state built those exact locations to catch someone else’s wallet, not theirs.
5. License Plate Irony
New Hampshire’s license plates carry the state motto, “Live Free or Die.”
In the mid-1970s, a Lebanon man named George Maynard covered those words with tape because they clashed with his religious beliefs.
New Hampshire cited him, convicted him three times, and sent him to jail for 15 days after he refused to pay the fines.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Wooley v. Maynard that the state couldn’t force a driver to carry its message.
That ruling still stands, so the state can’t cite a driver for covering the motto today any more than it could cite Maynard.
Many drivers keep driving with that motto in plain view anyway, plates uncovered, exactly as the ruling left them free not to.
6. Warrant Article Nod
The state still runs many of its town budgets the old way, from the floor of an annual town meeting instead of a mail-in ballot.
Warrant articles lean on two separate legal words for what a town is about to do: “raise” the money and “appropriate” it.
Raising money means identifying where it comes from.
Appropriating it means committing that money to one named purpose.
Almost nobody at the meeting asks the moderator to explain the difference.
Not once.
141 of New Hampshire’s 214 eligible towns still vote this way.
Everyone in the room nods along together anyway.
Psst! How many of these New Hampshire myths could you spot on your own? Flip each card and find out.
7. Primary Season Sigh
New Hampshire protects its first-in-the-nation presidential primary by statute, not by habit.
State law requires the Secretary of State to schedule the primary at least seven days before any similar election in another state.
Every four years, that law turns diners and living rooms across the state into campaign stops.
Residents keep showing up to ask their questions anyway, not out loud.
A packed diner counter just means it’s an even year.
They count the days until the candidates leave and the diner goes back to being just a diner.
The counter regulars already know the exact week that happens, and they never bother explaining it to the reporters still filming out front.
7 Things New Hampshire Wildlife Starts Doing in the Fall That Surprise New Residents
New Hampshire Fish and Game logs an average of 64 moose-vehicle collisions a year, and many happen in low light.
New residents assume the danger peaks in deep winter, but the state’s wildlife runs on a completely different calendar.
7 Things New Hampshire Wildlife Starts Doing in the Fall That Surprise New Residents
7 Reasons New Hampshirites Drive Past Two Stores to Reach Market Basket
A Patch reporter once ran the same grocery list through a Shaw’s and a Market Basket on the same day, then added up both receipts.
The gap looked small on paper, but it adds up fast for New Hampshirites who shop that way every single week.
7 Reasons New Hampshirites Drive Past Two Stores to Reach Market Basket
