Is it ‘the Again Bay’ or simply ‘Again Bay’? The reply may shock you.

The Boston Globe

On the subject of Boston neighborhoods, utilizing the particular article is much from definitive.

By Camilo Fonseca, The Boston Globe

Could 17, 2026 | 5:00 AM

6 minutes to learn

Right here’s a trick query: what’s one factor the Again Bay, the Fenway, and the Seaport all have in frequent?

Certain, upscale residences and sky-high rental costs. However in addition they share one thing extra primary, a easy, three-letter phrase: “the.”

Or, maybe, none of them do.

On the subject of Boston neighborhoods, utilizing the particular article is much from definitive. For some, including a “the” earlier than the neighborhood identify is barely pure, a nod to its distinctive character and historic id. It’s all the time “the” North Finish. “The” South Finish. God forbid you drop the “the” from the West Finish. Somebody will need a phrase.

However stumble upon somebody on the road, and also you may properly hear them dropping the “the.” I dwell in Fenway. They work in Again Bay. Let’s seize a drink in Seaport.

“It’s simply Again Bay,” Marianne Zemmes, a graduate pupil at Boston College, mentioned whereas sitting on a park bench on Commonwealth Avenue. “I’ve by no means heard of ‘the’ Again Bay, truly.”

Inform that to some residents, and so they’ll provide you with an odd face.

“We all the time say ‘the’ Again Bay, when any person asks us the place we dwell,” mentioned Kathy Ennis, 76. “I don’t know, actually, why we try this.”

Her husband, David Ennis, 75, took a second to roll the phrases over in his mouth.

“‘Again Bay’” he thought of. “I dwell in ‘Again Bay.’”

After just a few seconds, he shook his head. “It doesn’t work,” he mentioned.

For some residents, the excellence is misplaced fully.

“I’ve by no means heard the time period ‘Seaport,’ besides on the indicators that I see on the best way to the airport,” mentioned Anthony Sammarco, a neighborhood historian. “I suppose it’s the official identify. However do you hear folks saying it? No!”

However actuality is just not so reduce and dried. In a ballot of a neighborhood Fb group, 68 p.c of respondents mentioned they lived “in Seaport,” versus 32 p.c “within the Seaport.” (The only level of settlement, it appears, is that hardly any residents use “South Boston Waterfront,” which is the neighborhood’s official identify.)

If residents are cut up, what does the town need to say?

Official sources aren’t a lot assist. Town web site lists each neighborhood with no “the” — even these, just like the South Finish, the place the presence of a particular article is hardly controversial. And even these names aren’t “official,” since metropolis planners work when it comes to zoning districts fairly than conventional neighborhood boundaries.

(For the document, the Globe’s senior copy editor recommends “the” for all related neighborhood names.)

So there’s not a lot settlement somehow. Sounds about proper for Boston, the place seemingly trivial points can spark sharp debate.

“I believe it has so much to do with the longevity of publicity to the town of Boston, and to the Again Bay neighborhood, particularly,” mentioned Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Again Bay Affiliation. “Whether or not you grew up right here, or whether or not you extra just lately got here right here. I believe that’s the place the distinctions lie.”

In her expertise, longer-term residents sometimes default to together with the particular article, whereas more moderen arrivals “might not have absolutely tailored the identical vernacular.”

That checks out: most histories of the realm use “the” Again Bay, relationship again to 1857, when metropolis planners first started filling within the marshy water to construct housing. So does Henry James, in his Gilded Age novel “The Bostonians,” describing the newly constructed neighborhood as “a row of homes, spectacular … of their excessive modernness.” (“Don’t you hate the identify?” one character quips.)

Ever since, although, “Again Bay” has closed the hole; a overview of Google Books information reveals that, in written use at the least, the 2 are actually nearly neck-and-neck.

For proponents of “the Again Bay,” the article makes a small however essential distinction; like “the” Ohio State College, it indicators one thing particular and distinctive.

“There are different Again Bays,” Mainzer-Cohen mentioned. “I don’t assume the procuring is pretty much as good in Again Bay, Antarctica as it’s in ‘the’ Again Bay.”

Calling it “the Fenway,” some say, additionally helps distinguish the neighborhood (formally part of Fenway-Kenmore) from the ballpark. That might make sense, if it weren’t for a latest social media ballot the place practically 90 p.c of individuals mentioned that plain previous “Fenway” is simply positive.

What to name the waterfront neighborhood with luxurious condos and high-end eating places is a pricklier query, entangled in many years of redevelopment and native squabbling. First proposed as “the Seaport District,” it was formally named “the South Boston Waterfront” — a concession by Mayor Thomas Menino to South Boston politicians that has not stood the check of time.

Builders, for probably the most half, have ignored the official identify in favor of the standalone “Seaport” branding — itself a matter of authorized dispute in some instances.

Neighborhood advocate Steve Hollinger mentioned, from his perspective, dropping the “the” is one thing of a branding scheme. Builders have lengthy sought to ascertain the neighborhood as “its personal factor,” he mentioned, and loads of residents really feel the identical manner.

“There’s most likely extra of a hip crowd that calls it ‘Seaport,’ and that’s kind of the target market of WS Improvement,” he mentioned, referring to the agency answerable for a lot of the neighborhood’s transformation. “Whether or not they’re transplants or not, I don’t know, however [they are] positively skewing youthful.”

WS Improvement runs bostonseaport.xyz, the all-but-official neighborhood web site which just about solely makes use of simply “Seaport.” (The area for bostonseaport.com continues to be held by Hollinger, who mentioned he “didn’t need them suggesting they personal the rights to that phrase.”)

Hollinger, 63, mentioned that whereas he most likely refers back to the neighborhood each methods — “It form of is determined by the context,” he mentioned — most individuals he is aware of have a tendency to make use of the particular article.

However, as Google Books information reveals, “the Seaport” loyalists might quickly be a minority — in the event that they aren’t already.

So if most neighborhood residents name it “Seaport,” does that make it proper?

Perhaps, mentioned Margaret Thomas, a linguistics professor at Boston Faculty.

“In every group, individuals are innovating, unconsciously or self-consciously, to create new varieties,” she mentioned. “[Some] individuals are drawn to new varieties. Others are repelled by new varieties.”

And it’s the collective “speech group,” she mentioned, that finally decides what to name issues.

Normally, Thomas mentioned, place names are extra secure than different parts of language, which frequently shift over time.

However that doesn’t imply they’ll’t evolve as properly. We might consider Roxbury as an opaque correct noun at this time, however the identify comes from its stony floor (“Rocksborough”). Different names are even stranger contractions: the unique Boston, in Lincolnshire, England, was as soon as St. Botolph’s City.

“It was [once] an outline, however it’s simply grow to be a label, like a non-parsable label,” Thomas mentioned.

Maybe like Seaport.

It’s no shock, she added, that younger folks appear to be extra prone to drop the “the,” given the generational behavior of experimenting with language.

“Younger folks, youngsters, faculty college students, are form of a dynamo of linguistic change,” Thomas mentioned.

Look no additional than Thomas’ personal college students. In an off-the-cuff survey, most indicated they might by no means say “the” when speaking about [the] Seaport, [the] Again Bay, or [the] Fenway. Even these raised within the Boston space mentioned they might drop the particular article at the least generally.

“The entire system is consistently present process change, erosion,” Thomas mentioned. “Just like the dunes, they by no means disappear; they simply transfer round, century after century.”

Hollinger has lived within the Seaport for greater than three many years, however mentioned he doesn’t get riled up over a three-letter phrase. He remembers the naming tug-of-war between Menino and South Boston, one thing that’s higher off prior to now.

There are larger issues to be nervous about within the neighborhood, he famous.

“I don’t see the world as binary,” Hollinger mentioned. “No matter you wish to name it, name it.”