I'm a big fan of linguistics, regional dialects, only-used-here terms... stuff like that. I've been reading up on it this morning. This page, a Glossary Of Boston Slang, will spawn a few articles. One of them will be called some form of "local terms that I was unaware of, but which rule," once I type it up and everything.
Quick preview: I was unaware that a triple decker house was known as an "Irish Battleship." I also had no idea that "Slampig" was one word, or that Framingham was known as "Dirtyham."
Nothing against Framingham- I've never had a bad date out of that town- but I needed a segue into town nicknames, and people from places like Gettysburg or Amityville will tell you that sometimes bad things happen to good towns.
One thing that jumped out at me during my research was that other towns use the "Vegas" moniker that people from the South Shore like to drop on Marshfield. While I type it now and then, I don't think that I have ever spoken the word "Marshfield" to anyone local. "Marsh Vegas" rules too hard. It is highly prevalent, as is the lazier "Vegas."
We could argue all day about why Marshfield is known as "Marsh Vegas." Some people point to the Irish Riviera nicknaming pattern, some point to a parody (sleepy town named for Las Vegas), some point to former gambling houses, some point to legalized horse betting, some point out that "Las Vegas" means "the meadows," which Marshfield is covered in, some point to the overabundance of commercial signs as one drives down Route 139... no one knows why it is called "Marsh Vegas," but everyone knows that it is called "Marsh Vegas."
Suburbanites like myself tend to forget that, while the South Shore may seem like the whole world to some people, it really is just a little slice of a little section of a little state. Still, I was very shocked to see that there were contenders arising for the Vegas title.
Lexington, Massachusetts, Wakefield, Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire all turn up in the Boston Slang Glossary, laying claim to the Vegas title. Lex Vegas and Nash Vegas do have a ring to them, and Wakefield has the additional nom de guerre of "The Dirty Dirty Wake Vegas."
I have heard "Dirty Dirty" used in rap music by rapper guys speaking about the "Dirty Dirty South," and that's where the term is owned. Locally, I have heard it used for the South Coast region of Massachusetts. It makes more sense with "the Dirty Dirty South Coast" just from the hip-hop genesis of the word, but "Lex Vegas" makes more sense than "Marsh Vegas" and I still intend to advocate for Lexington to drop the nickname.
In fact, they should all drop the term "Vegas.". Marshfield deserves it, Marshfield rocks it harder, and many locals would not know what someone was talking about if they said "Marshfield."
Do I have the right to make this claim? Am I right to make this claim?
"Lex Vegas" yields 41 million results on Google. Many of them are from other states, however. Lexingtons in both Kentucky and Virginia have more prominent usage of "Lex Vegas" than Massachusetts does. That's a red flag right there, player.
"Wake Vegas" loses on Google because Katy Perry did a song called "Waking In Las Vegas," and that's pretty much all she wrote for the Internet presence of "Wake Vegas." I have no intention of hopping through 100 pages of search results looking for a nickname etymology which I plan to disregard anyhow. Eff them.
"Nash Vegas" is even uglier. For one, Nashville, Tennessee stakes a pretty solid claim to the title. To make it more Google-awful, a prominent professional wrestler named Kevin Nash once had a stage name of "Vinnie Vegas," and it kills any Google presence New Hampshire may have hoped for with the nickname.
It just fits Marshfield better. They are the only ones who truly own their nickname. Massachusetts deserves better than a second-best Lex Vegas and New England deserves better than a third-best Nash Vegas.
Therefore, I call on Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to do the right thing and issue an official proclamation proclaiming Marshfield as the only true Vegas, and dismissing the claims to the term by Lexington, Nashua and Wakefield. Anyone caught referencing Lex Vegas will be dragged down to Green Hahbah and keelhauled.
Keelhauling, which is the practice of tying a criminal to the keel of the ship and dragging him under it, was a vicious practice. Those who didn't drown were dragged along a wall of barnacles, to the extent that decapitation happened now and then. It was outlawed in 1853, but it could be brought back in special circumstances.
Special circumstances like someone failing to recognize Marsh Vegas, for instance...
We've done whole articles on town nicknmes.... check it out....
Shot from the cah, not fah from the bahn, in Cahvah.... OK, it's Ryegate Farm in Plympton, but I didn't feel like driving up to Harvard for one stupid cah-in-yahd picture....
Massachusetts is known world-wide for her brutal accents. I don't need to tell you that, you live it.
Our job today will be to examine what makes up the Boston Accent, how far it spreads, where it stops, what stops/changes it, and what it then becomes. We also wish to define lesser-researched terms like "South Shore Accent" and "Cape Cod Accent."
I want to state right here that, although I have Historian credentials, I got into Journalism as a sportswriter, and anything beyond sports-writing greatly involves the chance of my intellect running into a wall. As the causal agent in the intellect/wall encounter, I might not be aware when it happens. If you read an article on quantum physics that Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote and you disagree with it, he's probably right and you're probably wrong. That might not be the case today when you and I speak about Linguistics.
I should also add that the author is fiercely parochial. I firmly believe that Plymouth, America's longest-running settlement for white people, is home to the true American accent. Once you start heading West and South, this true American accent gets corrupted.
Massachusetts was English territory, and English is the main language here. However, Massachusetts also was an ocean away from England, and we sort of got our own thing going on eventually. Massachusetts has had a lot of immigration, so we now have a lot of English being spoken by non-English people who are taking an earnest crack at it. Throw in the great mixtape of Time, and here we are discussing different local accents.
Remember, if you go by Years, our main dialect is Algonquian. If I remember, I'll call the Wampanoag Language Research people and ask if the more eastern Wampanoag speakers drop their Rs.
Any accent flexed in Massachusetts falls under the broad umbrella of New England English. This is a grouping of 3-10 local accents, depending on who you count. Two super-dialects exist within this grouping:
-Western New England English is spoken in Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, Vermont and northern New Hampshire.
- Eastern New England English (which encompasses the Boston Accent), which was the language of most of New England for much of her White Guy history, is utilized in eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire, and coastal Maine.
We'll draw a map for those who got confused by that.
Western New England English, which you might know as Hick Speak or How They Talk In Places With Mountains or Those People Who Use Rs, is first up to bat. It seems to run along the Connecticut River, and was spread by trade.
While grouped in the same general accent, Connecticut and Vermont speak differently, but they are more like each other than they are ("ah") like Boston. The same goes for Western Massachusetts.
Western Massachusetts is sort of a merger zone for the CT and VT versions of the accent, and Merger Zones are a subject we'll revisit soon enough.
As with most things New England, I doubt Connecticut's loyalty. However, the consensus among linguists is that the Mountain Speak hasn't been overridden by the powerful Noo Yawk influence coming from the big city to the SW.
Anyhow, the Syrup States are some other website's problem. My area of concern is east of Connecticut through Cape Cod, and then up the coast to Maine.
BOSTON
Boston is the hahhtland of the Boston Accent, and- by proxy- the North East New England English accent. They are most frequently associated with dropping their R sounds, a habit known as non-rhotic speech. We also use Broad A sounds, which is where my own powerful Boston accent screws up the narrative... I can't imagine in my head what the non-Boston version of the trap-bath split is.
You've heard a zillion actors take a crack at the Boston accent. Cheers was famous for it. Norm made a weak effort at the accent. Sam didn't try at all. Fraser and Diane sort of flex a Brahmin accent, and Carla sounds like she's from the Bronx. Cliff (the actor who played him was from Connecticut) tried hard, overdid it, and sounded very much like a non-drawling Mainer.
Johnny Depp, who can do anything, couldn't do the Boston accent. Jack Nicholson, with a shelf full of Oscars, never even tried to fake one in The Departed. Ben Affleck did the very rare "had the Boston accent, sort of had it altered in acting school, and then had to re-learn it when Boston movies came into vogue" movement. Chief Brody can't do one, even with his Islander wife helping him.
I know from how we market this page that, if you're reading this, you don't need me to explain to you what the Boston accent is.
The most powerful and natural usage of a Boston Accent that I ever heard was when I was installing office furniture in the 1980s with the V Crew, a bunch of Southie guys who took a lot of Valium. While I can't repeat it here, it involved the meanest V Crew guy loudly encouraging a man who he thought might be a black homosexual to go through the crosswalk more quickly. While the racial slur was textbook non-rhoticism, he managed to stretch "queer" out to three syllables without even thinking about using an R sound. I'd write it, but I have no idea how to. It would need an A, a Y and a perhaps several Hs.
There is at least one Facebook page where you have to even SPELL in a Boston Accent.
As far as "where does the accent start to change" part, it may be easier to look at the borders. We already looked at the WNEE accent out west. The Boston accent slams into that once you get out of Worcester.
We'll get to the South Shore and the Cape in a moment, but we first need to do some of that Merger Zone work.
MAINE
There are two Maine accents. The main Maine accent is the inland one, where you ask a guy a question and he answers with an "ayup." That old dude from the Pepperidge Farm commercials rocked this sort of Maine accent. Stephen King, when he speaks instead of writes, also has a strong Maine accent.
They say that the Pepperidge Farm guy (Parker Fennelly, born in the 19th Century) has pretty much what would be a textbook Yankee accent. All of New England sounded like him before the Industrial Revolution. Boston accents, imitating England-English dialects of the 1800s, sprung up 200 years after the Yankee accent. It was all Ahhhhhhhhhhh after that.
When you get too close to Boston, the accent shifts heavily to Massachusetts. Boston-influenced Mainer is the other Maine accent. The Boston accent follows the coast, through parts of New Hampshire, from Cape Cod to southern and central Maine. Maine is where it merges with the other Maine accent.
Inland Maine is heavily influenced by the Vermont accent and even the French accent dropping down from the Great White North.
There's a touch of Maine to the Cape Cod accent, but we'll get to that in a minute.
RHODE ISLAND AND THE SOUTH COAST
Rhodey is an itty-bitty state with a unique position in this discussion. They are the home of the Southeast New England English Accent accent.
In short, Rhode Island has a very New York tinge to their accent. They are non-rhotic, but very distinct from Boston. The second word of "Rhode Island" starts with a "D" when a true Rhode (Island) Scholar is speaking, and is closely related to her neighbor, Lon-Guy-Land.
It is notable in that they are not connected to New York other than through Connecticut, and Connecticut isn't as Noo Yawk-sounding. That's not easy to pull off.
It might have to do with tourists, and definitely is related to Rhodey's healthy Italian population. Italians are able to resist the Boston accent somewhat, but they go under in a second for a Rhode Island accent. Rhode Island is also the top location in America for another Romance language bunch, the Portuguese.
It pushes out of Rhodey onto the South Coast somewhat, but it hits a wall once you get out of her cities. "New Beffuh" was coined by someone having fun with this accent.
Probably the best representative is Peter from The Family Guy, a show that is very up-in-your-face Rhode Island. He sounds like he's from New York, which is OK in Rhode Island. "Plunderdome" Buddy Cianci is was also a known heavyweight among Rhodey accent users.
CAPE COD
You'd be tempted to say "Ted Kennedy" here, but remember that he was born in Dorchester. Cape Cod won him over, but- as a Dorchester kid myself- I can tell you that the Dot never leaves the Rat.
Cape Codders have several factors at work when they speak. This is a key merger zone, and you'll notice that whoever I stole that Accents Map from didn't even try to score Cape Cod.
Whether the Cape Cod accent exists as a distinct entity is subject to some debate. It's a little bit of Maine, a smidgen of New York, a touch of Connecticut, a whiff of Rhode Island, a hint of Florida and a heaping dollop of Boston.
They are at the tail end of the Boston Accent, and it is the main influence on year-round residents. Ask someone from the Cape to say "Yarmouth" or "Barnstable" if you need an example, although I'd recommend doing so once the Summer People leave.
Summer People come from all points of the globe, bringing their accents with them and sometimes staying for 1/3 of the year. This can be very influential, as most Cape towns double in population in the summer. Families in cottage neighborhoods tend to spread out among that neighborhood when the kids get older, meaning that a Brewster neighborhood may have a rather large bloc of people who speak with the same sub-species of a Noo Yawk accent.
Many other Cape Codders are snowbirds, meaning that they have some other strong influence on their speech for 6-10 months a year. This effect is compounded by the fact that so many of our Snowbirds do their thing in Florida. Fortunately, a lot of Florida's snowbird population comes from Massachusetts, so the tinge is weakened somewhat.
In short.. although "cosmopolitan" is not a term normally ascribed to Mashpee, it does technically fit. This is the best explanation I can give you for the differences between Boston and Cape Cod's accents.
The Kennedy clan wield the most famous version of the accent, although there is a heavy Boston influence. People under 40 may or may not know that "Diamond" Joe Quimby, the eternal mayor of Homer Simpson's Springfield, is doing a Kennedy impression. Between Quimby and the Kennedys, the Boston accent is sort of the American Politician accent.
THE SOUTH SHORE
Time changes many things. I sure look worse now than when I was a kid... and I wasn't a good-looking kid, believe me. Time also changes accents.
If you ever read "Cape Cod Folks," which was written about 1860s Southern Plymouth, you'll be amazed at the dialogue. People who live where my Hahvahd Yahd ass does used to talk like drawling ("Becky was mad, and wouldn't speak to teacher, along o' teacher's goin' with Beck's beau.") Maine people. I saw not one dropped R, and the author, a socialite English teacher from New York, would have noticed such a thing.
Like we said earlier, most of New England spoke with the Maine accent right up until it became fashionable in Boston to drop Rs after vowels. It took some time to drift out into the deep suburbs and rural areas.
I'm not old enough to do anything but guess at this, but I'd say that the South Shore started changing when Going To The Beach became a major American leisure activity. The changes accelerated when Route 3 was built, opening up the South Shore as a home for Boston workers.
When busing hit in the 1970s, anyone with money fled Boston. Much of the South Shore was undeveloped, or existed in cottage/cabin form. This changed, and most towns on the South Shore saw their population double from 1950 to 1980... some even doubled from 1970 to 1980.
This influx of Southie/Dorchester/Roxbury/Hyde Park people changed the phonic character of the South Shore. By the 1980s and perhaps long, long before, the South Shore was the second home for the Boston Accent.
There is a possibility that the South Shore may soon out-Boston Accent the actual people from Boston. Boston always has and will continue to draw immigrants, both from America and abroad. They will do so at a rate much, much higher than somewhere insular like Pembroke will. Southie is only 80% white, and is 8% black. Duxbury is 99.4% white. Southie is rapidly gentrifying, while Cohasset doesn't look that much different demographically than it did in 1986. This will change the Boston accent... in Boston.
That's right, folks.... we're really not that far from a day when a mob movie is being shot in Massachusetts, and people from Southie get turned down in casting because they don't sound "Southie"enough for the mob movie. This actually happened once (visually) with Dawson's Creek, a show about Cape Cod that was shot in North Carolina because Cape Cod didn't look Cape Cod enough for the producers). When that day comes, don't be shocked if the set of the gritty urban mob movie looks a lot like a Marshfield High School reunion.
I hunted for the South Shore accent all over those there Internets. I may eventually find what I'm looking for, but the best line I saw came in a so-bad-I-won't-link-to-it "People from California Try To Pronounce New England Town Names" video. Looking at "Scituate," some gnarly dude said "It looks like the degree you get if you study Science Fiction in college."
You may also enjoy this forum where someone moving to the South Shore posted a query as to "Which South Shore Town Do I Move To If I Don't Want My Kids To Get The Boston Accent?" Unfortunately for her, the answer is "Plymouth, 1835."
There are some differences between the coastal South Shore accent and the interior Plymouth County one, but they are minor enough that we won't bother with them unless a fight starts in the comments.
The best simple explanation is that the South Shore Accent is similar to the tourist-altered Cape Cod accent, but every tourist on the South Shore is from Hyde Pahhhhhk.
Massachusetts has several sea monsters in her history.
Daniel Webster saw a sea serpent off of Duxbury, and Gloucester had numerous modern serpentine sightings. Moby Dick is tied to us to a small extent, and Jaws is tied to us to a great extent. We are the new, hip place for Great White Sharks to go, and we even had a Killer Whale in town last week. Lovecraft knew what he was doing when he put Arkham in Massachusetts.
However, our nastiest, ickiest sea monster is larger than a Blue Whale, and the only thing on Earth larger than it is a distant cousin of it.
There's no way to avoid it, as it goes where the ocean pushes it. We have no sensors to detect the presence of it, and we don't know if one is around until people start being injured by the hundreds.
Bullets don't harm it, a missile would go right through it, it survived an asteroid strike and you can hack it to pieces without lessening the danger it poses. Oh yeah, it's positively dripping with poison. It may also be immortal.
It'd take a shipload of Hit Points to kill one of those, huh? Thankfully, Godzilla incinerated this monster with his nuclear fire-breath in that 1970s movie, right? Wait... what??
It's real???
No...
Yes.
This monster that we speak of is a Lion's Mane Jellyfish. The LJM is a species of Cnidarian, a phylum that encompasses the Jellyfish family.
It is prevalent in the northern Atlantic, as it prefers colder water. They can not tolerate warmer waters, and are rarely found below 42 degrees north latitude. They dine on zooplankton, just like other giant creatures do. They are pelagic (open ocean) for most of their lives, but they tend to drift into bays as the currents dictate.
It is the largest known jellyfish, and holds the World's Largest Thing title if you don't count stretched-out Bootlace Worms. Massachusetts holds the world record for LJM (and, thusly, everything else), a feat they performed when a LJM washed ashore in a town that I cant find the name of. If anyone knows, hit me up in the comments.
This Lion's Mane Jellyfish that washed up in Massachusetts was 7 feet across. The tentacles, when stretched out, were over 120 feet long. The largest Blue Whales are about 20 feet shorter. That's a lot of jelly! You'd have to slaughter every character that Charles Schultz ever drew to make a corresponding amount of Peanuts Butter to get a PB&J out of that sucker, and that's before we find a football field's worth of bread to house the whole sandwich.
Most of that length is Tentacle, and each of those tentacles is lined with poisonous barbs that would break off into human skin quite nicely. The barbs get fired off like harpoons any time something- like you- touches the tentacle. The poison, while generally not fatal to a healthy adult, can cause critical burns. A jellyfish has thousands of such tentacles.
Now, something like that floating around in the middle of the ocean isn't much of a problem for most of us, and is just a small part of the general Cowardice that keeps me from doing things like Carnival Cruises or joining the Navy.
However, there is nothing to stop one of these creatures from washing ashore in Massachusetts. What beach it hit depends entirely on the currents.
"Washes ashore in Massachusetts" doesn't mean "one washed up here, once, in 1870." We are well within the range of these things, and they have inflicted mass injury in New England before.
Rye, New Hampshire is a nice place to go beaching. However, it wasn't so nice in July of 2010. A LMJ the size of a trash can lid with 20-25 foot tentacles washed into a group of bathers. Officials attempted to remove it, which only broke it up into innumerable pieces.
This, plus the wave action that breaks jellyfish apart, loosed the barbs from the tentacles, and the sea around Rye was a puddle of pain. The barbs can sting long after the jellyfish is dead, and long after their removal from the host creature.
Thinking that the danger had passed, bathers in Rye went back into the water... water that was filled with microscopic, poisonous, floating barbs. Over 150 people were injured.
Most of the injuries were minor, because, as bad as it was, swimming into a spread-out infestation of barbs is different than directly contacting a LJM and getting thousands of stings at once. Still, five people needed to be taken to the hospital. The rest were treated on-site with vinegar and baking soda. Old salts swear by meat tenderizer, as well.
As you can see from my handy map of the currents off Massachusetts, had that beast not become trapped in the surf off Rye, it very easily could have moved with the currents down the Massachusetts, visiting Boston, Plymouth, Cape Cod...
You won't know that it's here... until the screaming starts. If you see it, it's already too late.
July is America's most explosive month. It's when we (USA) celebrate our Independence Day. On this day in 1776, we said Thanks But No Thanks to our old overlords in Great Britain.
That's the original BREXIT, player. Considering that the United States is one Star Wars sort of weapon away from being to beat up every other nation on Earth at once, I'd say it's the important one, too.
We celebrate this move every July 4th. John Adams laid the groundwork in a 1776 letter to his wife, Abigail:
"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."
We still follow the same basic blueprint today, and perhaps only the solemnity of his future office kept Adams from adding things like "stumble around drunk," "punch strangers" and "blow stuff up."
The technology was there in 1776. Gunpowder, one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China (the others being paper, printing, and the compass), was first used for fireworks in China during the 7th Century Tang Dynasty. The ingredients are still basically the same today.... charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur.
They were originally worked into celebrations to frighten away evil spirits. Fireworks-making developed into a respected profession, and soon made it to the Arab world (1200s) and Europe (1700s). The Arabs gained them via Silk Road trade, while the Europeans learned of fireworks from missionaries. Peter the Great's ambassador was known to have raved to Peter about them.
Fireworks were in America before the Revolution. George Washington had a fireworks show at his inauguration. We were shooting them off to celebrate July 4th in 1777, six years before we knew if we'd beat the British in the Revolution or not.
They were wildly popular in America. For many years, fireworks were sold without regulation. Errors in both the manufacturing and the end-use processes led to numerous injuries. Injuries associated with July 4th fireworks (and gun-shooting, another popular way to celebrate July 4th back in the day) were frequent enough that a diagnosis of "patriotic tetanus" was developed and put into common use.
Fireworks use five ingredients to do what they do. They use fuel, an oxidizer, a binding agent, a chlorine donor (chlorine strengthens the color of the flame) and color-providing chemicals. Metals like lithium (red), sodium (yellow), calcium (orange), barium (green), copper (blue), iron (gold) and aluminum (white) are burned to create the colors you see.
If your memory stretches back to high school and you can remember Bunsen Burners, know that fireworks color moves along those lines. If you have access to pure copper and out it over a Bunsen flame, you'll get the same blue/green light that you see at a fireworks show. If you have some cesium kicking around, you can get a sort of indigo color akin to what you see when a skyrocket blows up. Remember to use small volumes of cesium, as skyrockets blow up in the sky (far away from the guy lighting them) for reasons of safety as well as reasons of aesthetics.
The key ingredient, of course, is gunpowder. Gunpowder is explosive, and therefore very dangerous. Since the danger exists, the government stepped in to protect Americans from themselves. Fireworks fall under the auspices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, aka the ATF. The Bureau had Firearms first for a while, but the resulting acronym drew an unfortunate comparison to expanding government.
Aluminium powder and potassium perchlorate are the main chemicals used in the flash powder for most commercial illuminating fireworks.
The laws governing fireworks vary from state to state. Delaware, New York, New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are the only states that ban the public from having any manner of fireworks. Maine, if I'm reading this right, only allows sparklers.
That's why the gods made New Hampshire, my friend.
New England, which looms large in history, is actually made up of six small states. The great state of Rhode Island is smaller than most counties in Texas. You can drive from a state where fireworks are illegal (like Massachusetts) to a state where they can be purchased freely (like, say, New Hampshire) rather easily. Throw in some free state-to-state border crossing, and it is quite easy to bring New Hampshire fireworks into Massachusetts.
There are other options. My dad, when I was little, used to go into Chinatown, pick up some Jackie Chan-looking guy on a street corner, hand him some money, get handed back a shopping bag full of fireworks, and then drop the dealer back off in Chinatown. He brought me with him once, I was very young, but remember it vividly. It was the same basic modus operandi I'd use hundreds of times later in life, getting weed.
Once you have the fireworks, be they from New Hampshire or the Chinese guy your father knows, it's time to take them home and blow them off/up. If you don't have some, worry you not... there are fireworks displays being put on by towns all over the state. "Explosives" are generally one of those areas where you want to let professionals handle things.
A list of these fireworks events, you say? Just happen to have one right here!
Some fireworks trivia for you:
- US citizens are not allowed to have fireworks with more than 50 milligrams of flash powder. Beyond that, you need a license. This law went into effect in 1975, which is why fireworks may have seemed louder when you were a kid... if you're old enough, of course.
- Fireworks-related injuries dropped by 70% after this law went into effect.
- A true M-80, which doesn't exist legally in the US (and hasn't since 1966), has between 200 and 300 mg of flash powder.
- Since they don't blow up in your hand, skyrockets, Roman Candles and so forth are allowed to have more than 50 mg of flash powder. Jason Pierre-Paul (see below) was maimed by a skyrocket.
- Skyrockets have two fuses, the one that shoots it into the air and the one that explodes the pyrotechnic.
- The first rockets had an open end on the tube, and would fly around randomly. Fins were later added to stabilize the flight. The fins on your commercial skyrockets today are not there for looks. Break the stick off of a bottle rocket, light it and drop it on the ground in front of you- the infamous (insert name of minority that you wish to offend here) Chaser- and you'll see destabilized rocket flight. People who study rocketry call these "Ground Rats."
- Several illicit fireworks manufacturers still make high-powered (over 500 mg of flash powder) fireworks. If you read about a shack exploding for non-meth reasons, it's often related to this field. Illicit M-80 manufacturing rose up after the 1975 ban on higher-powered civilian fireworks. An explosion of such a place in Benton, Tennessee damaged homes for miles around, and could be heard 20 miles away.
- Contrary to popular belief, a cherry bomb or a M-80 with illegal levels of flash powder is not a quarter stick of dynamite. Dynamite uses nitroglycerin, while fireworks use less-explosive black powder.
- Aside from the USA and July 4th, other nations use fireworks to celebrate New Year's, Halloween (Ireland), their own Independence Days and other important events. England uses them for Guy Fawkes Day, which is ironic because Fawkes was planning to blow up Parliament or some other funk band.
- Fireworks shows in the US used to last an hour, but they average 20 minutes per show now.
- A string of firecrackers lit in 1996 for Chinese New Year in Hong Kong lasted for 22 hours.
- Arabic people refer to fireworks as "Chinese Arrows."
- Many airports use fireworks to scare away birds.
- Disney's nightly fireworks shows use less-polluting compressed air in place of gunpowder. Otherwise, accumulated explosive pollutants would eventually destroy their lakes and perhaps cause an explosion.
- Keith Moon of The Who was introduced to cherry bombs in the 1960s. He soon developed a love of dropping them in hotel toilets, often causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. Moon is, even in death, banned from the Holiday Inn, the Hilton, the Waldorf Astoria and the Sheraton chains.
I work for a Choice Hotel franchise, and we have a list of persona non grata guests posted on the wall who are forever banned from the premises. Moon's name is on it, right between the name of the guy who killed his girlfriend and shot a Bourne cop (Adrian Loya) and Ron Mott, an NBC reporter who had a mental breakdown in our lobby and had to be removed by the Bourne police department. Keep in mind, Moon died in 1978.
One time, Moon was listening to his own band's records in a hotel. A hotel manager came up to him and asked him to "turn down that noise." Moon immediately got up, threw a stick of dynamite into the toilet, destroyed the hotel's plumbing system, and turned back to the hotel manager. "THAT, my friend," he said, pointing to the bathroom, "is noise. The music is the 'oo."
- Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Peter Criss of KISS each had M-80s thrown at them by fans during shows. Criss was partially deafened.
- NY Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, an All Pro level pass rusher, lost fingers on his hand while trying to light a skyrocket. This is a bad thing to have happen when your job is grabbing people.
- Hunter S. Thompson requested that, upon his death, he be cremated. He then wanted his ashes loaded into a artillery shell and exploded over the Rocky Mountains. Johnny Depp stepped in, and Thomson's ashes were built into a cannon shell and blown up as part of a big fireworks display during his funeral.
Here are some common fireworks classes:
Class 1.1G (Mass Explosion Possible:Pyrotechnics) UN0094 Flashpowder Class 1.1G (Mass Explosion Possible:Pyrotechnics) UN0333 Fireworks (Salutes in bulk or in manufacture) Class 1.2G (Projection but not mass explosion:Pyrotechnics) UN0334 Fireworks (Rarely used) Class 1.3G (Fire, Minor Blast:Pyrotechnics) UN0335 Fireworks (Most Display Fireworks) Current federal law states that without appropriate ATF license/permit, the possession or sale of any display/professional fireworks is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
Any ground salute device with over 50 milligrams of explosive composition
Torpedoes (except for railroad signaling use)
Multi-tube devices containing over 500 grams of pyrotechnic composition and without 1/2" space between each tube
Any multiple tube fountains with over 500 grams of pyrotechnic composition and without 1/2" space between each tube
Any reloadable aerial shells over 1.75" diameter
Display shells
Any single-shot or reloadable aerial shell/mine/comet/tube with over 60 grams of pyrotechnic composition
Any Roman candle or rocket with over 20 grams of pyrotechnic composition
Any aerial salute with over 130 milligrams of explosive composition Class 1.4G (Minor Explosion Hazard Confined To Package:Pyrotechnics) UN0336 Fireworks (Consumer or Common Fireworks) Most popular consumer fireworks sold in the US.
Reloadable aerial shells 1.75" or less sold in a box with not more than 12 shells and one launching tube
Single-shot aerial tubes
Bottle rockets
Skyrockets and missiles
Ground spinners, pinwheels and helicopters
Flares & fountains
Roman candles
Smoke and novelty items
Multi-shot aerial devices, or "cakes"
Firecracker packs (see this link for various brand/label images). Although some firecracker items may be called "M-80's", "M-1000's", "Cherry bombs" or "Silver Salutes" by the manufacturer, they must contain less than 50 milligrams of flash or other explosive powder in order to be legally sold to consumers in the United States.
