#eastern seaboard

[dabiconcordia]

Shoes

My father has a pair of shoes So beautiful to see. I want to wear my father's shoes. They are too big for me.

My baby brother has a pair As cunning as can be. My feet won't go into that pair. They are too small for me.

There's only one thing that I can do Till I get small or grown. If I want to have some fitting shoes I'll have to wear my own. BY ANONYMOUS

[agentfascinateur]

Bravo Portland, Maine 💜👏

[tenth-sentence]

In Tasmania and along the mainland east coast they made the most extreme plant community conversion – rainforest to grass.

"Country: Future Fire, Future Farming" - Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe

[densetsu-no-stahpenisu]

Transitional Laundry Room Orange County Inspiration for a mid-sized transitional galley remodel with a beige floor, medium-tone wood floors, a side-by-side washer and dryer, and white countertops. The space will also have shaker cabinets, gray cabinets, white walls, and an undermount sink.

[organicon]

Built-In Home Office in Orange County Inspiration for a mid-sized transitional built-in desk with white walls and no fireplace, a medium tone wood floor, and a beige floor.

[smoke-under-skin]

Chicago Dining Room Breakfast Nook

Inspiration for a small coastal light wood floor, brown floor and wallpaper breakfast nook remodel with gray walls

[glennkotche]

Living Room Enclosed Example of a large, enclosed living room in the beach-style with white walls, a tile fireplace, a standard fireplace, and a wall-mounted television.

[trxangleboy]

Bedroom - Beach Style Bedroom

Photo of a large guest room in a beach house with a light wood floor and a beige floor and white walls

[arpadvisory]

Parkes Special Activation Precinct [Central NSW Region]

Parkes Special Activation Precinct The Parkes Special Activation Project was updated 01 March 2022 to include a boundary adjustment with the view to contributing to more local job and business opportunities. Inland Rail Project The Inland Rail Project, which spans from Melbourne to Brisbane, will go through Parkes, NSW.  It begins in Melbourne and will go through the Albury, Junee, Parkes,…

[wr0n9way]

Dining Room in Chicago

Inspiration for a small breakfast nook remodel with gray walls and a coastal light wood floor, brown floor, and wallpaper.

[gatsbycodes]

Craft Room Craft Room Orange County Photo of a craft room with a large built-in desk in a beachy style, a light wood floor, and a beige floor.

[kimoray]

Living Room - Beach Style Living Room

Example of a large, enclosed living room in the beach-style with white walls, a tile fireplace, a standard fireplace, and a wall-mounted television.

[senpaisimmer]

Guest in Orange County Photo of a large guest room in a beach house with a light wood floor and a beige floor and white walls

[widowshill]

ALEXANDRA MOLTKE AS VICTORIA WINTERS IN DARK SHADOWS, 1966-71.

[thecurioustale]

The "Middle West"

I was recently watching Trump speak (not something I typically do 🤢), and the most interesting thing he said had nothing to do with anything he was actually talking about: It was that he used the term Middle West to refer to that generally north-central part of the United States, centered on the Mississippi River, that is neither the South nor the Northeast (nor the Mid-Atlantic, but that's really just a subcategory of the Northeast that Northeasterns use to not get lumped in with each other).

We all know it today as the Midwest. But in times past it was much more commonly known as the Middle West.

(Tangent: It is also one of many geographical region-name reminders of our national East Coast beginnings, as America has like six different kinds of "West": the Midwest, the Southwest, the (Pacific) Northwest, the Mountain West / Interior West, the West Coast / Pacific West—and that's not counting the deprecated terms (such as "Far West," i.e. distinguished from the Midwest) or the old Northwest (which would've referred to places like Ohio and (what we know as) West Virginia)!)

Over the course of the 20th century, "Midwest" became an increasingly common form of the term, eventually overtaking "Middle West" in popularity and, by our lifetimes, completely replacing it. The only people who still use "Middle West" today are very old. I'm only aware of the term's existence because I'm a fan of midcentury media and if you go watch (for example) old Dragnet episodes from the 1950s you'll hear the term used.

I was looking at the Google Ngram Viewer to get a sense of the relative usage frequencies of these terms, and I noticed something interesting: Not only has "Middle West" been driven almost extinct from active usage, but "Midwest" itself has also declined precipitously in the 21st century. People today are not calling the Midwest the "Midwest," at least not with the frequency and relevancy they once did. I was curious if this was another permutation of the usage, so I also looked up "Midwestern" (which I included in the link above), thinking that maybe people nowadays are calling it the clunkier "the Midwestern states" / "the Midwestern US," but the adjectival has declined in step with "Midwest." It really does seem to be that people are just using this geographical category less often.

Perhaps unsurprisingly: the sociopolitical cohesiveness of the Midwest has significantly diminished over time. I think most Midwesterners would still recognize and affiliate with the term if you applied it of them to their faces, but increasingly I think many of them do not think of it in their daily lives as a personal or cultural identifier. Which has many fascinating implications that I'm not going to get into.

(Another Tangent: I feel like I've talked about specifically this "Middle West / Midwest" thing on Tumblr before, but I feel that way about half of everything because after all I've been writing down my thoughts for over 20 years and I've been having thoughts for considerably longer than that, and it's often not clear to me what I've talked about publicly and where.)

Anyway, this entire post is really just me scratching the itch of verbal brain noise about the orange guy using a term in a public address that I never hear people use in the present day. A little piece of lost language, hearkening back to a completely different era and world.