[ShadowBanThis01]

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and nobody says "Chicagoland" in conversation. It's only used by newscasters, and car dealers in their commercials.

Even dumber is "Chicagoland area."

My copyediting professor (who worked at the Chicago Tribune) loved to mock this dumb term, pointing out that nobody says "Detroitland" or "New Yorkland" or "Indianapolisland."

[tkgally]

> It's only used by newscasters, and car dealers in their commercials.

When I was growing up in Southern California, “the Southland” was used in the same way to mean the Los Angeles area. I heard the term only in the mass media, never directly from a person in conversation.

A little googling turned up this list of media-only geographical terms:

https://www.cyburbia.org/forums/threads/nicknames-for-metrop...

I noticed this phenomenon when I moved to Chicago in 1978. I liked the city, but I thought that “Chicagoland” sounded stupid.

[ShadowBanThis01]

Ha, I moved to L.A. from Chicago and immediately noticed "the Southland" used in exactly the same way.

Another WTF is "the inland empire," also used for some nebulous part of the L.A. area by newscasters only, as far as I can tell.

But then CA absolutely loves meaningless names for stuff, like the perennial "red flag warnings." So... we're being menaced by red flags? Why do we fear them?

And "sigalert." Whatever, man.

[halfmatthalfcat]

People say "Tristate Area" and "Metro Detroit"? Don't necessarily need to tack "land" on there but there are colloquial terms for these large metro areas.

[ShadowBanThis01]

There seem to be lots of "tri-state" areas, and "metro Detroit" is probably the least dumb way to include an entire metropolitan area. I wouldn't even call it colloquial.

[nkrisc]

Growing up in Chicago, I only ever heard the term on TV or radio.

[JKCalhoun]

"Frisco" anyone?

No?

[ShadowBanThis01]

"The OC" anyone?

Also no.