When I was a young teenager and had discovered the existence of pornography, I recall seeing some sort of pictorial that referred to "El Lay."
Haha. Porn is always a step ahead.
Anyway, is this any different than referring to Images and Words as "I&W" or Piece of Mind as "PoM"?
Very different. If I was talking to you in person, I never in a million years would say "Hey, I listened to Pee oh Em last night. Then I popped on a little eye and double you. Kicked ass."
I'm curious about your use of "they" in the first sentence? Are you limiting your irritation to folk in or from LA who refer to the city/region as "LA"? In the first part of your post, it sounded you were referring generally to anyone who uses the acronym.
And yes, I go to "SF" not infrequently. Also to "NYC".
"They" = those that are referring to the City of Los Angeles as "ellay". I was born in the NYC area, and lived most of my life here. Never once, not ever have I heard the City referred to as "Enwhy". I will conceded the "Ay-Tee-El", ATL, for the airport code, but thats' not the initials of the City, per se.
I just listened to "That Lucky Old Sun" by Brian Wilson, and it's a love letter of sorts to the City, and it espouses a lot of what I'm talking about. Also Concrete Blonde's "Roses Grow". The Scorpions "Steam Rock Fever". Each evoke "LA" in a passing way as if we're just supposed to understand and get it. And, honestly, I guess I don't.
I've never heard anyone else express a lack of understanding of references to "LA" in any of these songs (or any other song, including the massively irritating "I Love L.A."), although I will confess I don't understand
why "Steamrock Fever" refers to "L.A.," but mid-70s Scorpions lyrics were all a bit "out there."
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No, no, it's not a lack of understanding; I get "Roses Grow", but it, and the Scorpions song, highlight what I'm saying. In "Roses Grow", it's about how even among the dregs of the earth, good people exist ("roses grow", up through the cracks of the broken glass) but the "LA" is almost an afterthought, like "eh, no big thing". In the Scorpions song, it makes ZERO sense, other than "hey we need to be cool, we need to make a hip reference, and so we'll throw "LA" in there, because, well, America!"
Again, all this doesn't amount to a hill of crap (it's the "mildly irritating" thread after all), just an observation, from a relative New Yorker, no less. I guess I don't get the dichotomy of it. It's supposed to be all at once a part of everything and yet detached from it all, ephemeral like the wind.