I’m off to St. Louis for a few days. Any of you who wonder what it would be like living in a city of 106-107 degree temps should know that, first off, they talk kind of funny. They put the letter R in words where it doesn’t belong. You eat a salad with a fark. The nation’s capital is Warshington. You get the idea.

Then again, I’ve noticed Chicagoans have their own way of brutalizing the English language. To wit:

“Whatja do last weekend?”

“The t’ree of us played gahlf and ate sah-sujus.”

So, what really distinguishes these two cities separated by a mere 300 miles?

Well, besides the obvious (10 World Series wins for the Cards vs. one for the Cubs and five for the Sox in the last 100 years), I’ve determined there are two significant differentiators:

In St. Louis, the transit system, called Metrolink is incredibly clean. The “L” – well, not so much.

In Chicago, on a weekend evening over beers, the national pastime is cornhole. In St. Louis, corn (pronounced carn) is for barbecuing. There is a very cornhole-type game popular there, however. It’s called washers and if you assume the pronunciation would be warshers, you’d be correct. It’s similar to cornhole in that the contestants place the cups 25 feet apart. The cups are actually small sections of PVC pipe and instead of a beanbag, the players toss, well, washers.

Each player throws two washers toward the opposite cup with starting order determined by a diddle (I’m not making this up).

See, we’re not that different after all.

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By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 07/07/2012 11:37 PM

Whaaaaaaaaaa???? I've been a Chicagoan all my life and never have I played a game of cornhole in a bar. I never even heard of it! Oy!