Who decides whats OOT and whats in town?

amother

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 11:49 am

Only on this site do I hear people using in and out of town.
Who gets to decide why a place is in or out of town?
When I aas growing up, I lived in alovely suburb. And to me, that suburb was the center of the world. Because I lived there.
But why would one place get to be considered in toen and another not as much? Ive only ever heard those phrases being used on this site, never in real life.

Ema of 5

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 12:01 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

In town is the place where you live. Out of town is anywhere outside of that. It’s (mostly) only in NY that out of town means anything other than that.

amother

Daisy

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 1:17 pm

In the US, out of town is mostly out of NY and NJ. The other usage of OOT, is when someone comes from outside your town- they are from out of town. It tends to matter for shidduchim. But not really much else.

amother

Ghostwhite

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:07 pm

It's decided by people's opinions wherever however whoever and there's ain't anything we can do about it
In Town is
Lakewood
Monsey
Brooklyn

Everywhere else is OOT
Let me know if I missed anything..

amother

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:18 pm

amother [ Royalblue ] wrote:

I think OOT is used to describe anywhere outside the tri state area.

I grew up in the tri state area. On this site is the first time I ever heard this idea. So its not just a ny/nj thing. It has to be more than that.

amother

Bone

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:19 pm

amother [ Ghostwhite ] wrote:

It's decided by people's opinions wherever however whoever and there's ain't anything we can do about it
In Town is
Lakewood
Monsey
Brooklyn

Everywhere else is OOT
Let me know if I missed anything..

Most people I know in Queens, Riverdale and Staten Island would disagree. That's maybe in town for yeshivish. If you include the greater Orthodox community, you need to include all of NYC, Long Island/5 Towns, and Teaneck/Bergenfield/Englewood.

There are also a bunch of areas that are borderline.

amother

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:20 pm

amother [ Daisy ] wrote:

But this is my question. Who made that up? As I just wrote, I grew up in the tei stste area. We never used, or heard, this phrase.

amother

Lotus

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:21 pm

amother [ Bone ] wrote:

Right. Like I currently live in Queens but plan on moving OOT eventually. Around here that means out of the tri-state area. I would definitely call Queens "out of towny" but it's not actually OOT.

amother

Ghostwhite

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:23 pm

amother [ Bone ] wrote:

Correct that's in town for Yeshivish

amother

Babyblue

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:33 pm

Plenty of place in NY or NJ are Jewishly OOT.

It does remind of a joke about a yeshiva--for some reason I am thinking South Bend, Indiana.

Bochur A says to Bochur B about Bochur C--'Oh-he's an out of towner".

This is in South Bend.

Bochur A and Bochur B are from Brooklyn. Bochur C is actually from South Bend.

amother

Ghostwhite

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 2:55 pm

amother [ Green ] wrote:

Do women who live out of town feel offended when someone refers to the place they live as “out of town?” Or do they feel complimented?

Definitely not offended, very proud
Question is in towners are offended when people refer to them as "in towny"..

Ema of 5

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 3:01 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

But this is my question. Who made that up? As I just wrote, I grew up in the tei stste area. We never used, or heard, this phrase.

Like I said, in town vs. out of town is where you live vs. everywhere else. Only in certain communities in the tri-state area does it mean anything else. I never heard it used to mean anything else until I came to this site.
I grew up in Miami, and all of our friends and relatives who didn’t live in Miami, lived out of town. When we were going away, sometimes we went out of town.

amother

Aubergine

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 3:05 pm

If there are a lot of people on imamother from certain communities, you will often hear those communities referred to as in town and the others as out of town - by the people in the communities with the most people on imamother (and maybe they have the most people here because they are from the biggest Jewish communities…)

amother

Stone

Sun, Mar 27 2022, 3:18 pm

I was raised in Chicago.
OOT meant anywhere where you have to drive more than 30 minutes or fly.
Now I'm in Lakewood and OOT means anything out of Lakewood-Brooklyn-Monsey.
When my children talk to their Chicago cousins, they both talk about OOT and the conversation ends up being quite humorous.

In retrospect, I realized that we did talk about how New Yorkers/Lakewooders call themselves "In-towners" and that's really code for high and mighty and superior.
But truly it was all reverse snobbery and an excuse to talk nasty about "New Yorkers" because "they started being nasty first" or something.

As someone who's lived in both settings, I tell everyone to take a chill.
OOTers aren't necessarily nicer, more accepting, and less trendy
In-towners aren't necessarily nastier or more gashmiusdik.
Pros and cons.
And there are true disadvantages of marrying anyone "OOT" whether it's a Chicago girl marrying a LA boy, a Lakewooder marrying a Miami girl, or any other combination.