shoobie

n. a short-term visitor to the beach and shore communities of New Jersey. Subjects: New Jersey, English, Derogatory, Slang

Editorial Note: The Dictionary of American Regional English includes the spellings of shoebe(e), shoebie, and shub(i)e. Etymological Note: As indicated in the citations, shoobie has long been said to derive from a description of tourists, day-trippers, weekenders, and others who would bring a meal packed in a shoe box. Though often repeated, this supposed origin has not been verified.

1 Comment | Cites | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Citations: 1962 Dorman Cordell @ Ocean City, New Jersey The Progress (Clearfield, Pennsylvania) (Aug. 15) “College Students Flock to Ocean City, N.J., Despite Its Strict Laws” p. 10: There are almost as many boys as girls in town from Friday night through Sunday, while the “shoobies” are here. These are boys, also mostly college students, who spend the summer within driving distance of Ocean City and come here for the weekends. They get the nickname from the term “shoebox lunchers,” for people who come to the shore for a day, bringing their lunches in shoeboxes, or more losely for anyone who doesn’t stay for at least a week. 1986 Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries @ United States Congress House of Representatives Federal sport fishing fees: hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (June 19): It’s not the people, perhaps, that we’re so concerned about who start fishing in March or April and continue to fish into late November, Rather, it’s the little folks, “shoobies” as we refer to them, who perhaps fish one day out of the year. 1987 Nick Ravo @ Ship Bottom, New Jersey New York Times (Feb. 16) “The Talk of Long Beach Island”: “They get offended when we say, “Shoobie, go home.” Besides, it’s bad for business. I just smile and wave and say, “Ya’ll come back now.’”…Shoobie is a name Long Beach Island residents attach to tourists, usually those from Philadelphia and the New York metropolitan region. The name is derived, local residents said, from day-trippers of decades ago who visited the island and brought their lunch in shoe boxes. 2001 Rhoda H. Halperin The Teacup Ministry & Other Stories p. 125: They are “shoobies,” newcomers, wealthy newcomers, who live here only in summer. In the forties and fifties, we locals used the term “shoobies” to talk about the day trippers who would come to the beach and bring their lunches in shoe boxes. We loved it when the shoobies went home for the winter.…Shoobies are really ruining the world, aren’t they? They seem to have misplaced values, somehow. What is important to them is not important to me. 2006 Keith Forrest Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania) (Aug. 30) “Becoming a ‘shoobie’”: I have become the very thing I despised growing up, the most vile of all human beings, a “shoobie.” If you’ve never heard the word before, it’s a derogatory term that locals at the Shore use to describe tourists. It dates back to the days when visitors would arrive on the train for a day of sun and surf with their possessions in a shoebox.

Posted 26 Sep 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

ha ha ha funny all of my friends call me shoobie q so i wanted to see if there was a deffinition but this isnt really what i thought that i would find

by shelby 22 Dec 06, 0537 GMT