Hello, new arrivals, and welcome to Athens from your friends at Flagpole! We know learning a new city can be intimidating, so we put together this lexicon of commonly used terms that will have you sounding like you fit right in. After all, we were new here once, too, you know.
Barnett Shoals Road: Which one? The one with all the apartments, the one with the Kroger and the Publix, or the one out in the sticks with the elementary school?
Boulevard: Both a street running parallel to Prince Avenue and a neighborhood. Just one name, like a Brazilian soccer player.
Broken Kroger: Like Murder Kroger or Disco Kroger in Atlanta, Krogers in Athens have nicknames. The Kroger on Alps is so named because of its crowds, lack of parking and seemingly perpetual renovations. (Don’t listen to anyone who tells you it’s “Hot Kroger.”) See also: Space Kroger.
Cobbham: The neighborhood of Victorian homes west of downtown and south of Prince Avenue. Is it pronounced COBB-am or Cobb-HAM? Talk amongst yourselves.
Downtown: A place where you’ll party for the next 4–7 years, then complain about when you return as an alumni and discover it wasn’t frozen in amber when you graduated.
East Athens: A historically Black, now gentrifying, neighborhood across the North Oconee River from downtown. Not to be confused with the Eastside.
Eastside: Can refer to everything east of the river in general, but more often specifically the suburban subdivisions and strip malls southeast of campus.
Five Points: The area around the intersection of Lumpkin Street and Milledge Avenue. Once a middle-class neighborhood of professors and students, it’s now primarily made up of Airbnbs and UGA football coaches’ mansions.
Gameday: UGA home football games. Hunker down at home before and after, but pros know that during the game is the best time to get your grocery shopping done.
Georgia Curse: You sweet summer children have only known national championships, but ask your folks about 28-3, Tua Tagovailoa or the Braves circa 1991–2020.
Go Bar: Badly missed defunct bar at the corner of Prince Avenue and Meigs Street (pronounced Miggs), where Poquito’s is now. Still used as a descriptor for experimental music: “They play free jazz with a toy keytar and some paint cans. It’s so Go Bar.”
Howdy: A half a shot, often ordered by older townies as a way to say “howdy” to their aging friends without facing going to work the next day with a massive hangover. See also: Whisper.
Kelly Girtz: The mayor of Athens, who is a guy. Can often be found doing howdies in Normaltown.
Khaki Line: The dividing line between the “student” side of downtown to the east and the “townie” side to the west. Traditionally considered to be Lumpkin Street, although student forces have been making inroads lately.
The Loop: The ring road around Athens, like a mini-285, aka the Bypass. It will take you your entire college career to figure out how to navigate it.
Normaltown: The area around the corner of Prince and Oglethorpe Avenue, so named because the UGA Health Sciences Campus was once a “normal school,” or teacher’s college. (In between, it was a landlocked naval base, if you can believe that.) The last townie stronghold, now that students have breached the Khaki Line.
Oconee County: Here there be dragons. And Trump voters.
People’s Republic of Athens-Clarke County: Tongue-in-cheek nickname for the left-leaning local government, which doesn’t lean so far to the left anymore after Republican state legislators gerrymandered our commission districts.
R.E.M.: Famous rock band from Athens that your parents listened to, composed of Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry. If you see any of them around town, pretend you didn’t notice.
Snellville: Place Athens doesn’t want to be like. Whenever a new chain business opens: “We’re turning into another Snellville.”
The Steeple: All that remains of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on Oconee Street, where R.E.M. played its first show in 1980. Much like he did with the loaves and fishes, Jesus miraculously expanded the abandoned sanctuary so that everyone living in Athens at the time could attend.
Space Kroger: At the time it was built, the Kroger out on Highway 29, toward Madison County, was the world’s largest Kroger—so big you can see it from space.
Tipping: The practice of giving money to your server, bartender or delivery driver—make it at least 20%!
The Trestle: The elevated wooden train bridge featured on the back of cover of the R.E.M. album Murmur. Saved by the city amidst much uproar from fans, 20 years later the rotting structure was demolished and a replica built in its place as part of the Firefly Trail. Yeah, it’s not the “real” trestle, but now you can safely take a selfie there.
Uga: Whichever inbred bulldog is the mascot these days.
Whisper: A half a howdy. If you buy your bartender a shot, they’ll pour themselves one of these to be polite while staying relatively sober.
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