22nd Apr 2003
Spare Me the 3-1-1
I realize I’m not exactly a top source of generating hipster or ghetto youth slang in our language, but none the less, I’d like to humbly propose “3-1-1″ entering the vernacular as petty complaining or non-essential issues.
This slang would be only natural. A decade or more ago, cool people brought us “4-1-1″ as slang for “the skinny,” “the low down” or “the info.” (The explanation, for you foreigners and slow-witted Americans, is dialing 4-1-1 on the phone gets you directory information.) In his superbly funky song from last year Business, Eminem pronounces “Hip hop is in a state of 9-1-1.” (Nine-one-one, the emergency number, of course, takes on even stranger new connotations as slang in this post-9/11 world.)
Now, New York City recently introduced a new directory service at 3-1-1, which the city’s web site describes as “Citizen Services Center: The Public now has one easy to remember number to access New York City’s non-emergency Government Services.” Basically, it’s where you call to complain about things like pot-holes.
NY was not the first city to do this; it is simply one of the latest to addopt it based on the provisions for use of 3-1-1 as a non-emergency local government services number set forth by the Federal Communications Commission in 1996.
Slang examples:
- “All she ever goes on about is 3-1-1.”
- “I’m in the middle of a deadline meltdown, and want me to drop everything for your 3-1-1?!”
- “Here comes Mr. Concerned Neighbor.”
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