adorshki
Reverential Member
Being a city whose cultural heritage is near and dear to my heart, here's the scoop, from here:Then there are those who call San Francisco "Frisco."
Don’t Call It “Frisco”: The History of San Francisco’s Nicknames (that's a link)
"The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, known as the “Frisco,” began
operating in 1876, but the nickname is as old as the American West.
Herb Caen, the Pulitzer Prize–winning San Francisco Chronicle columnist,
was adamant that no one call his fair city by such a sliced-up moniker. "
My favorite?
Not even mentioned(kinda surprising since Hollywood loved it to death):
"The Barbary Coast", although granted it was technically the red light (and music hall ) district, it was occasionally used in the early days (1850's to '80's) mean the city itself.
Was also the place where the term "Shanghai'd" was invented:
(from Wiki):.
"Sailors, who were frequently the targets of the pretty waiter girls, had cause to dread the area because the art of shanghaiing was perfected here. Many a sailor woke up after a night's leave to find himself unexpectedly on another ship bound for some faraway port. The verb to "shanghai" was first coined on the Barbary Coast."
And:
"The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whoremonger, lewd women, cutthroats, murderers, all are found here.
Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens, where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also.— Asbury, in Benjamin Estelle Lloyd's Lights and Shades of San Francisco (1876)[28]"
Oh yeah.
I want me some o' that.
:biggrin-new:
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