Hi, today we’re turning over the newsletter to our readers, who have MANY opinions about an eight-letter word that is either an insult, core to our identity, or both.
But first, here’s what else is going on:
- New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel is seeking counseling and will miss Day 3 of the NFL Draft, according to ESPN.
- Why did DHS post a photo of Fenway Park on its social media? “Iconic image” or “white supremacist propaganda”?
- A new study has found an “alarming” high flood risk for 17 million Americans on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
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TODAY’S STARTING POINT
The Globe’s Billy Baker stirred up readers with his exploration of the origins of the word “Masshole.” A loud, impatient, lane-hopping Bay State denizen who plagues fellow New Englanders? Some of our readers wear the term with pride. Others recoil at its coarseness.
Our readers are in agreement, however, that the term originated sometime after the Big Bang. Many heard (or were called) a “Masshole” many decades ago. Today we hear a few of their stories.
The first time...
“I knew what it meant the second I heard it,” writes Elizabeth Adams.
Timothy Parsons got the “Masshole” treatment in high school, when his family moved from Woburn to New Hampshire. “I chalked it up to jealousy. These N.H. folks grew up without sidewalks, streetlights, or a professional sports team.”
David Ludwig heard “Masshole” a lot the years he commuted north to work in New Hampshire: “Sometimes all it took was seeing a Massachusetts license plate to set them off. Especially if the driver was driving like a Bostonian!”
Writes Karen Nugent, from Acton: “My brother in the ‘Live Free or Die’ state started calling me that in the ’80s.” (They were originally from Waltham).
Marcia Imbrescia remembers the words “Go Home Massholes” spray-painted decades ago on a granite embankment of the Pemigewasset River in Lincoln, N.H. The irony, she writes, is that it was the locals who defaced the scene, “not the Massachusetts tourists bringing money into their economy.”
Masshole Pride
From Kristens Smith: “I was proudly calling myself a Masshole when I moved to Vermont in 1987. As in, ‘you can take the girl out of Mass, but you can’t take the Masshole outta the girl.’ Vermonters drive like wimps, and they put their turn signals on after they commit to the turn. Sheesh. And rotaries — forget about it.” Yeah, Kristens is still in Vermont.
Ellen Makovsky, who now lives in New Jersey, is so supportive of the term that she has a request for Globe readers: “If you can think of a way to write Masshole in 7 letters, I’ll get it on a vanity plate. The ideas I’ve come up with do not work at all — MA HOLE, MASSHOL, MASHOLE, MASSHLE.”
The Big Picture
Makovsky, like many readers, heard that Mainers began using the word “Masshole” long ago to describe those invaders who clogged Route 1 northbound on summers and weekends. And some, in hillier regions of New England, put down Bay Staters as “flatlanders” before Masshole came into vogue.
On the Cape, 50-year resident Betsy Fuller says she’s heard the term only in the past few decades. “I only hear it from people who don’t live here or are recent ‘wash ashores,’ which is another stupid moniker only used by non-townies.”
But reader Mike Moniz suggests a longer past.
“The first Massholes were the Indigenous people,” he contends. “I bet the Pilgrims called the locals Massholes.”
Or vice versa.
🧩 2 Down: Posh | ☁️ 61° Cloudy
POINTS OF INTEREST
A nuclear renaissance? Is New England on the verge of a nuclear energy rebirth, 40 years after the disaster at Chernobyl? Also, new documents show how Moscow lied to its people and the world about its Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. (The Conversation)
Striking our young: A South Shore 16-year-old lives with long COVID. Researchers say it can be as common in kids as asthma. In related news, a CDC official canceled publication of a study showing COVID vaccines sharply reduced the odds of hospitalization. (NYT)
Before prison: A Vermont experiment cleared courts of repeat offenders. Can it work elsewhere, like Boston’s Mass. and Cass?
Where are they? Can the missing people of Mass. and Cass be found? Family members keep searching. Says one: “You are always just a kiss away from me my beautiful boy.”
Hiker’s body found: The 61-year-old West Roxbury man had not prepared for last weekend’s sudden cold turn and 3.5 inches of snow in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Kent Wood’s body was found Tuesday evening on a trail on Franconia Notch.
Food in the news: Why Boston’s new food delivery permits could hurt gig drivers. Also, the owner of Cape Cod’s “Snack Shack” has been charged with stealing food and equipment from Plymouth schools.
From spas to podcast studios: Everyone wants covered parking, if they can get it. Here’s how the amenities in Boston’s condos and apartment buildings are evolving.
Kash Patel: The FBI began investigating a reporter who discovered the embattled FBI chief provided his girlfriend with classified access.
BESIDE THE POINT
🦍 Goodbye Little Joe: The silverback gorilla at the Franklin Park Zoo, who had a penchant for escaping as a kid, is moving on. Now 33, Little Joe is headed to another zoo to try to start a family, which is important in preserving the species, zoo officials say.
🚶♀️Walk this way! You’re telling us that walking isn’t ENOUGH? That we’re not doing it RIGHT? OK, tell us how to do it better.
🎵 Beyond Noah Kahan: Vermont music is so much bigger than one woodsy performer. Here’s what to hear.
📖 ‘Fat Swim’: Emma Copley Eisenberg’s bold and ambitious stories celebrate fat bodies and the people who live in them.
🧢 Dad: As the writer became older, he noticed something startling: “I was becoming my father.” Is it inevitable?
📖 🧻 ✂️ Rock, paper, scissors: Who knew the childhood game now includes fierce tournaments, with competitors throwing mind games, psychology — and rock. (NBC News)
Thanks for reading Starting Point.
This newsletter was edited by Peter Bailey-Wells and produced by Ryan Orlecki.
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Dave Beard can be reached at dave.beard@gmail.com. Follow him on X @dabeard.