{"id":236180,"date":"2026-05-19T00:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236180\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T00:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:48:10","slug":"l-i-r-r-vs-lurr-the-debate-splitting-new-york-commuters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236180\/","title":{"rendered":"L-I-R-R vs. Lurr: The Debate Splitting New York Commuters"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorkers, among other neuroses, can be particular about the local vernacular.<\/p>\n

You wait on line, not in line. The subway goes uptown or downtown, not north or south. And \u201cthe city\u201d never, ever refers to the whole city \u2014 just Manhattan.<\/p>\n

But for some reason, no matter how many times they\u2019ve ridden the Long Island Rail Road out to Jones Beach or back and forth between Midtown and Ronkonkoma, New Yorkers can\u2019t agree on how to pronounce it. The evidence has been on everyone\u2019s lips since about 3,500 L.I.R.R. workers went on strike on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of things to debate and to discuss right now,\u201d said Shekar Krishnan, a City Council member representing parts of Queens, including Woodside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst. \u201cBut there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s not debatable: We say Lurr.\u201d<\/p>\n

Try telling that to Kieran McShane, 69, a retiree who spent almost 40 years catching the 6:09 a.m. train from Babylon to Penn Station, the whole time calling it the L-I-R-R \u2014 each letter enunciated individually.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I know certain people say L-I-double R,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019d never say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. McShane\u2019s tolerance for alternate vocalizations was truly tested, then, when a reporter informed him that some pronounced the letters of L.I.R.R. as a monosyllabic word.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?! Really?!\u201d he said, before shouting to his wife in the other room: \u201cAnne! Have you ever heard it called the Lurr?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a beat, a woman\u2019s voice crackled over the phone: \u201cNever!\u201d<\/p>\n

Such confusion on Monday rang out across L.I.R.R. territory. People who said it one way were perplexed that anyone could, would, say it differently.<\/p>\n

Chrissie Cheung, 41, a lawyer who grew up in Bayside, Queens, is a Lurr traditionalist. She\u2019s been calling it that since she was 8, when she started taking the commuter train to ballet lessons in Manhattan (\u201cthe city\u201d). Soon, as a student at Stuyvesant High School, she was riding it every weekday.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s like Houston Street: New Yorkers know how to say it,\u201d said Ms. Cheung, who, obviously, pronounced it How-sten. \u201cI feel like people who take the Lurr don\u2019t call it anything other than the Lurr.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Jaeki Cho, 37, the founder of Righteous Eats, a food channel on social media, put out a short video<\/a> to his followers asking them how they pronounced L-I-R-R.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it\u2019d be a fun conversation,\u201d said Mr. Cho, who grew up in Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Flushing. \u201cBut people came out of the woodwork and sounded almost belligerent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just last week, he said, a woman approached him at a networking event and told him his pronunciation \u2014 he believes Lurr is \u201cnatural and efficient\u201d \u2014 was wrong.<\/p>\n

Her argument: Would anyone ever refer to the Long Island Expressway as the Lie?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was so gung ho about it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt made me laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pronunciations divergence has even the experts puzzled. Michael Newman, a professor of linguistics at Queens College, noted that L.I.R.R. was an initialism while Lurr was an acronym.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy something becomes an initialism when it could be pronounced as an acronym is weird,\u201d he said, noting that the City University of New York, CUNY, was pronounced kyoo-nee, but its state counterpart, SUNY, was soo-nee. \u201cI don\u2019t know why it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disputes over pronunciation are not uncommon in New York. As an example, Cecelia Cutler, a professor of linguistics at Lehman College in the Bronx, cited the various phonetic approaches to the name Schermerhorn, with sherm, skerm and skim all receiving significant usage.<\/p>\n

On L-I-R-R, there may never be harmony, either. Mr. Krishnan, the city councilman, said his own office was starkly divided on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a Queens thing to say Lurr,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think people in Long Island say L-I-R-R or L-I-double R. That\u2019s my working theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only it were that simple. Because others insist it should be called The Railroad. And then there are those call who say L-I-R, apparently believing the last letter is superfluous.<\/p>\n

Doug Pearsall, 65, the owner of Eastern Front Brewing Co., in Mattituck on Long Island\u2019s North Fork, who can see an L.I.R.R. train station through the front door of his business, said he didn\u2019t agree with any of the pronunciations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all just call it The Train,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just the way to get into the city. Or the way to drink on the way to Greenport, so you don\u2019t get a D.U.I.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last word he pronounced dewy.<\/p>\n