Well, I'm goin' downey ocean, Hon.

What did he just say?, you ask. You have to understand that people around here talk funny. The most widely spoken form of English is the Merlin Dialect, followed by Bawlmerese. Merlin is a somewhat watered down form of Bawlmerese.

Merlin itself is bordered on the north by Pennsylvania, to the south by Virginia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and to the southwest by West By God Virginia. Bawlmer, the home of Bawlmerese, is a bit more loosely defined, though it's generally agreed that the limits are as follows: The Emerald Inn on Putty Hill Road marks the northernmost point; the Gentleman's Gold Club marks the northeast corner; the Chesapeake Bay demarks the eastern limit; Patapsco Avenue, with its lovely views of petroleum farms and sunken hulls of ships scrapped out by Striegal Supply defines the southernmost limit and Leakin Park, the dumping ground of choice for the bodies of those who hacked off the wrong drug dealer, marks the western limit, although it can be argued that Bawlmer actually doesn't end until the Windsor Inn, where the Baltimore Ravens go to slap their women around.

Interestingly, residents of Bawlmer are referred to as Baltimorons. Baltimorons all refer to each other as “Hon”. Presumably this is a truncation of Honey, but nobody is entirely certain of the etymology of the word.

Merlin differs from Bawlmerese chiefly in that it's not necessary for the speaker to sound like he or she has catarrh, although there is less idiosyncratic vocabulary in Merlin.

Some interesting vocabulary from Bawlmerese :

Snew tares: What you put on your car in the winter

Amblance: The vehicle which will pick you up if you forget your snew tares and slide into a tree

Far truck: Usually accompanies the amblance

Warsh: What you do to your hands before meals

Zinc: Where you warsh your hands

Wooder: What you use to warsh your hands

Earl: A petroleum product used chiefly as a lubricant

In Merlin, everyone goes “down to” the ocean. Nobody knows why, it just is. Hence when one decides to spend an enjoyable week battling biting flies, mosquitoes, sand in the sphincter and the greatest population density outside of Mumbai, the process is called “goin' downey ocean, Hon”.

Next week we discuss Merlin's eastern shore where watermen dredge oysters in a process known as “drudgin' fer ersters”.