As a relative newcomer to Hampton Roads (just celebrated one year here), I will DEFEND the moniker. I was compelled to comment on this particluar "news article", and I use the term loosely, as this is certainly not news but evidence of a slow news day. The author even dissed the U.S. Post Office which, despite its apparent shortcomings, is WAY better than the postal system in any other country:
Nothing's wrong with a regional name that has a sense of place
Kerry Dougherty
The Virginian-Pilot©
June 8, 2008
REMEMBER WHEN you learned hell was a place, an ass was an animal, and there were two kinds of dam? It was such fun to toss around those naughty words in front of our parents.
I'm experiencing that giddiness today.
Because I get to use the T-word.
Here goes: Tidewater.
On occasion, I've tried to sneak the T-word into print. Most times, I was thwarted by stern editors, reminding me that Tidewater doesn't exist.
Neither does Atlantis, I once argued, but I'm allowed to mention that.
No dice, I was told.
Here's what our stylebook - the newsroom bible - has to say about the T-word:
Tidewater: Use Hampton Roads...
Regional honchos set out to eradicate "Tidewater" from the lexicon a few years ago. They wanted to replace it with the geographically vague "Hampton Roads."
I never describe our little corner of Virginia as Hampton Roads. Neither does anyone else. When asked, I tell people I'm from Virginia Beach. Or Tidewater. Or the Norfolk area (sorry, Meyera).
A story about our murky moniker in Friday's Pilot noted that even The Weather Channel prefers "Norfolk or the Tidewater of Virginia" to "Hampton Roads."
We've been bullied into using Hampton Roads over the past two decades. Still, no one does. The biggest victory for this futile effort came when the post office agreed to stick "Hampton Roads" on our postmarks.
As if postmarks matter.
Genuflecting at the altar of regionalism, the newspaper and TV stations foolishly joined the movement to purge our area of its poetic name.
Pity. Because Tidewater rolls off the tongue and makes you think of, well, tidewater. Hampton Roads makes you think of roads. Ugh.
One entity that's wisely resisted the regionally correct crowd is the airport.It's Norfolk International Airport. If you don't like it, land somewhere else.
"It will never be the Hampton Roads Airport as long as I'm chairman," declared Peter G. Decker, Norfolk lawyer and chairman of the airport authority. "If we had to change the name, it would be something like the Tidewater Airport.
Now that's got a special ring to it."
Bless you, Uncle Pete.
Decker said Friday he has a soft spot for "Tidewater" and that he and his wife never tell anyone they're from a place called Hampton Roads.
You go to Europe and say you're from Tidewater or Norfolk and people know what you're talking about," Decker said. "You say Hampton Roads, and they have no idea."
Yes, Hampton Roads has historical roots. Something to do with nautical terms from the 17th or 18th century. I hesitate to point this out, but it is the 21st century.
We've lost our powdered wigs and monocles. If only we could lose Hampton Roads, too.
News researcher Maureen Watts contributed to this column. Kerry Dougherty
Nothing's wrong with a regional name that has a sense of place
Kerry Dougherty
The Virginian-Pilot©
June 8, 2008
REMEMBER WHEN you learned hell was a place, an ass was an animal, and there were two kinds of dam? It was such fun to toss around those naughty words in front of our parents.
I'm experiencing that giddiness today.
Because I get to use the T-word.
Here goes: Tidewater.
On occasion, I've tried to sneak the T-word into print. Most times, I was thwarted by stern editors, reminding me that Tidewater doesn't exist.
Neither does Atlantis, I once argued, but I'm allowed to mention that.
No dice, I was told.
Here's what our stylebook - the newsroom bible - has to say about the T-word:
Tidewater: Use Hampton Roads...
Regional honchos set out to eradicate "Tidewater" from the lexicon a few years ago. They wanted to replace it with the geographically vague "Hampton Roads."
I never describe our little corner of Virginia as Hampton Roads. Neither does anyone else. When asked, I tell people I'm from Virginia Beach. Or Tidewater. Or the Norfolk area (sorry, Meyera).
A story about our murky moniker in Friday's Pilot noted that even The Weather Channel prefers "Norfolk or the Tidewater of Virginia" to "Hampton Roads."
We've been bullied into using Hampton Roads over the past two decades. Still, no one does. The biggest victory for this futile effort came when the post office agreed to stick "Hampton Roads" on our postmarks.
As if postmarks matter.
Genuflecting at the altar of regionalism, the newspaper and TV stations foolishly joined the movement to purge our area of its poetic name.
Pity. Because Tidewater rolls off the tongue and makes you think of, well, tidewater. Hampton Roads makes you think of roads. Ugh.
One entity that's wisely resisted the regionally correct crowd is the airport.It's Norfolk International Airport. If you don't like it, land somewhere else.
"It will never be the Hampton Roads Airport as long as I'm chairman," declared Peter G. Decker, Norfolk lawyer and chairman of the airport authority. "If we had to change the name, it would be something like the Tidewater Airport.
Now that's got a special ring to it."
Bless you, Uncle Pete.
Decker said Friday he has a soft spot for "Tidewater" and that he and his wife never tell anyone they're from a place called Hampton Roads.
You go to Europe and say you're from Tidewater or Norfolk and people know what you're talking about," Decker said. "You say Hampton Roads, and they have no idea."
Yes, Hampton Roads has historical roots. Something to do with nautical terms from the 17th or 18th century. I hesitate to point this out, but it is the 21st century.
We've lost our powdered wigs and monocles. If only we could lose Hampton Roads, too.
News researcher Maureen Watts contributed to this column. Kerry Dougherty
MY COMMENT:
I must share this from the Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP): "...regions – not cities or counties – are the units of economic competition. Only regions have the necessary scale and diversity to compete in the global marketplace. Only regions have an asset profile capable of projecting overall strength to compensate for profiles of individual localities which lack either essential infrastructure or a sufficiently skilled pool of labor. "
It is more important to act and cooperate regionally rather than to hold onto archaic notions reminiscent of high school sports. Certain tenets come to mind: "United we stand, Divided we fall" and "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
I must share this from the Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP): "...regions – not cities or counties – are the units of economic competition. Only regions have the necessary scale and diversity to compete in the global marketplace. Only regions have an asset profile capable of projecting overall strength to compensate for profiles of individual localities which lack either essential infrastructure or a sufficiently skilled pool of labor. "
It is more important to act and cooperate regionally rather than to hold onto archaic notions reminiscent of high school sports. Certain tenets come to mind: "United we stand, Divided we fall" and "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
Hampton Roads is a globally vital region, together. Not so much, city by city or town by town.
We are Hamptons Roads. Yes, the MSA we occupy is slightly different from our typical notion of who we are. But, nothing has been forced on us here by "regional honchos". Being recognized as a region with a single all-encompassing designation such as "Hampton Roads" is simply called branding. And, it's smart marketing. We just need everyone on the same bandwagon versus in-fighting and silliness such as my-city-is-better-than-your-city. Na-Na-Na-Na.
We are not Tidewater. Tidewater refers to the coastal plain of the Southern United States: eastern parts of Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia.
We are Hamptons Roads. Yes, the MSA we occupy is slightly different from our typical notion of who we are. But, nothing has been forced on us here by "regional honchos". Being recognized as a region with a single all-encompassing designation such as "Hampton Roads" is simply called branding. And, it's smart marketing. We just need everyone on the same bandwagon versus in-fighting and silliness such as my-city-is-better-than-your-city. Na-Na-Na-Na.
We are not Tidewater. Tidewater refers to the coastal plain of the Southern United States: eastern parts of Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia.
Let's hear it for the home team, Hampton Roads!
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2 comments:
Hampton Roads
Channel in the U.S. through which the James, Elizabeth, and Nansemond rivers flow into Chesapeake Bay.
About 4 mi (6 km) wide and 40 ft (12 m) deep, it has been an important military base since colonial days. In 1862 it was the scene of the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack. The port cities of Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth comprise the Port of Hampton Roads, one of the busiest U.S. seaports. Re: Encyclopedia Britannica
Let's get it right and call this area "Tidewater" I'm not a fish, I live on land.......
Ah, Kenneth, you're being uber-selective in what you quote.
In fact, the Encyclopedia Brittanica Online shares this as its 1st entry, in its entirety:
Hampton Roads is "great natural roadstead, southeastern Virginia, U.S., formed by the deepwater estuary of the James River, protected by the Virginia Peninsula. The Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers also enter the roadstead, which is connected to Chesapeake Bay by the Thimble Shoal Channel, some 1,000 feet (300 metres) wide; the channel extends for 12 miles (19 km) and reaches 45 feet (13 metres) in depth. Two deepwater channels branch out from the harbour, the southern of which is linked with the coastal inlets of North Carolina through the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Port cities facing the roads include Norfolk and Portsmouth on the south and Newport News and Hampton on the north. Norfolk is joined to Hampton by a bridge-tunnel 5 miles (8 km) long and to the eastern shore of Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel complex, which stretches 17.6 miles (28 km) and spans the Chesapeake Bay. The Hampton Roads area also includes the cities of Chesapeake, Suffolk, Yorktown, and Virginia Beach."
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