Chicagopedia

A couple new ones at Chicagopedia

• Witchya - witchya / witt cha / prep. phrase. "With you." As in: "You mind if I come witchya?"
• Nodjew? - nodjew? /no d'jeww/ Phrase. Much-contracted way of saying: "No, did you?" Often used as an answer to the question: "Jeetjet?"
• Elgin-O'Hare Expressway - Elgin-O'Hare Expressway/ el GIN oh HARE ex press way / n./ An optimistically named suburban highway that is the butt of many jokes because it reaches neither Elgin nor O'Hare -- and is often backed up. The roughly six-mile road, located near Schaumburg and Roselle, opened in 1993 with ambitious plans to someday link Elgin to the airport. Yet it now only connects Hanover Park to Itasca, ending at U.S. Route 20 to the west and I-290 to the east.
• 588-2300 - 588-2300 /five ate ate too three hun dred/ n. The phone number and catchy jingle, drummed into our heads for decades, of Empire Carpet, now known as Empire Today. The jingle was penned and performed by ad man Lynn Hauldren of Evanston, who has also portrayed the mustachioed Empire Carpet Man since 1977. It's his former barbershop quartet singing the jingle, which now includes the "800" prefix. Remarkably, despite decades of advertising, Empire operators have been known to ask callers, "How did you hear about us?"