Wanna take the Beltline out to the Circle of Death? Maybe go hang at the Terrace and later hit the Rat, the Nat or the Dise?
If you're from Madison, you probably know that the Beltline is a highway and the Terrace a cool place on the lake. And you may know that the Rat is the Rathskeller, the Nat the Natatorium and the Dise the Paradise Lounge on West Main. But the Circle of Death?
That, according to a new website called City Dictionary (yep, you guessed it: www.citydictionary.com) is a local nickname for "The road that circumnavigates the parking lot at Madison's West Towne Mall." The word poster, dubbed MadMax, says the lanes "merge together willy-nilly, making accidents as likely as ever."
The website, which went up last month, already contains more than 300 Madison terms, from "Virgin Vault" (the UW's former all-female Elizabeth Waters dormitory) to Picnic Point. The Nitty Gritty is listed three times, as the Nitty, the Gritty and the Nitty Gritty. Other familiar terms on the list: Mayor Dave, Isthmus and hot spicy cheese bread.
Madison has more terms logged than anywhere else, which is not surprising given that it was created here. Local couple Colleen and John Carmona, who run three "niche e-commerce sites" under the business name Wingra Direct, teamed up with John's brother Tom to launch the site. Most of the content will come from users.
"Local language is kind of what differentiates us," says Colleen Carmona. The goal is to collect as many terms as possible - places, businesses, institutions and slang - that "become part of everyday speak" for various places.
So far, amazingly, no one has added "Algae Bloom of Death."
