Don't even think about saying you're from Boston. (Flickr/Boston Public Library)

People have all kinds of reasons to use proxies for the place they're "really" from. So have an open mind.

An American woman in a crowded London bar asks the American man she's just met: "Where are you from?" He sips his drink and replies, "Boston." They are far from the U.S., after all, so specifics don’t really matter. But the woman presses: Where in Boston? She loves Boston. Her mom grew up in Newton, and her aunt still lives in Somerville. The guy, reddening, fumbles: "Well, not too­­­ far from there, sort of north of Boston ... I'm from Maine, actually. Southern Maine."

It's a social practice as common as air: using a major city as a proxy when telling a stranger where you're from. At simplest, it's a matter of convenience; it can indeed be easier, and faster, to tell someone whom you assume does not know the intricacies of New England that you're from Boston, when in fact you're from Cumberland, Maine, 109 miles northeast of the city. Or, more often, an adjoining suburb or exurb.

But upon discovering that someone is not in fact from exactly where they claim, those of us on the receiving end may very well enjoy calling them out on it. We might laugh at the Mainer in the London bar, or remind the New Jersey resident who says she's from New York City that she's not from New York City at all. We're especially ready to reject these kinds of claim if we're from the city in question, in which case we might feel the need to protect our turf, and the values we associate with it.....Continue Reading

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