There's a list of "New York" words and phrases that's been surfacing on the Web periodically for quite a few years. Not all New Yorkers speak like that, I assure you. Only barely-above-the-gutter white New Yorkers with Brooklyn roots, plus lower-middle-class Jews from Borough Park and wanna-be Italian mafiosi from Bensonhurst. I know one Italian limo driver who still says "youse" because (get this! ...) he wishes to preserve that particular brand of Brooklyn dialect. Here's the list: Filayda: A single phrase made out of two English words. As in, "I don't want this for now but I'll take it 'filayda.'" [I don't remember ever using the expression myself, but I do hear it often. Ricky V.]. Wawda: That which if not inhaled directly from the faucet is, if from a classier social set, sipped out of a glass. Naydivs: Local types born and reared in "Bronzvle." Tooner Samwidge: Luncheon staple. Mellid Cheese Samwidge: A menu choice if the luncheonette is out of tooner. [Somewhat archaic, both of them, since the disappearance of the luncheonette as a concept. R. V.] Kawfy: What washes down Mellid Cheese. Berle: Not Milton's last name but the method by which an egg is often cooked. Earl: What French fries lay in. Goil: The way people who say "berle" and "earl" pronounce "girl." Buzz: Large lumbering public vehicle usually located all in a clump or, if you're in a rush to be transported crosstown, at sporadic intervals. [An exaggeration, actually. R.V.]. Gazz: That which goes into the buzz. Fiff: The major avenue which separates Manhattan's East Side from the West. Sixt: The major avenue one block from Fiff. Ate. The major avenue one block from Seventh. [Despite the numerous moronic efforts to rename Sixt to "Avenue of the Americas" (eww); despite the fact that the ... uh ... official ... name appears on anything and everything that's mailed to or from Sixt, it's Sixt, and will still be Sixt a thousand years from now, one would hope] Ey: A manner of summoning those whom you would alternatively greet with "Whassup?" Bronnix: One of the land masses the Triboro connex. [The Bronx, actually: a neighborhood named after the Swedish immigrant Jonas Bronck and his family, the Broncks. The Triboro is the Triborough Bridge, built by the infernal Robert Moses. It was an automobile-only bridge back then; it has been (reluctantly) changed to automobile-and-bicycle and renamed (idiotically) Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, since. R.V.]. Lirracher: Stuff like what Dostoyevsky wrote. [Personally I don't know what this obsession with Dostoyevsky is. There have been infinitely better writers, including Russian writers. R.V.] Liberry: Where one goes to immerse in lirracher. Purdy: The view outside the Empire State Building. [This isn't specific to New Yorkers. R.V.]. Awfissa: Policeman. Cop. Patrolman. Sergeant. Dude in blue on horseback. Downashaw: Where Rockaway is. [Rockaway and Far Rockaway, actually, commonly known as the Rockways; the latter is the last stop on the "A" train; never take it if you can help it. R.V.] Ackrost: From here to there. [An exaggeration. R.V.] Monicker: Miss Lewinsky. Lannick: As opposed to Pacific. Fewcha: Follows the present. Ahkinsore: Clinton territory. Winda: What is always broken and what in the hot weather never rolls down in a cab. Payment. What one walks on so one doesn't get hit by a car. Innerestin: What this particular column should be unless you're somebody who demands quality. Youse: Second person singular. Yiz: Second person plural. Yizzle: A contraction to be used in the sense of, "Yizzle call me." Now most of this is very familiar to me as a New Yorker; I am, however, puzzled by a couple of things here. Specifically, I can't figure out what the original list's author had in mind when he wrote "Earl." I mean, yes, I get it, it's "oil." But ... hmm ... either I've never heard a New Yorker say it like that or I have a problem seeing the forest for the very familiar-looking trees ingrained in my psyche. Before you start pondering on this, let me remind you that the New York brand of English is unapologetically rhotic. Agressively rhotic. Defiantly rhotic. "Earl"? Really? Rhyming with "girl"? I don't get it. What am I missing? Bonus question: While I hear "youse" all the time, as Damon Runyon did nearly a century ago, I've yet to encounter "yiz." I don't get the joke. Care to explain?