As L.A. bloggers continue to debate the definition of "east side" (is it east of the L.A. river? La Cienega? Western? Downtown?), here's another one sure to frustrate Angelenos with a knack for detail.
Officially, we know "Silver Lake" is two words. It's a lake (well, not really, but you get the drift). And it's named after one-time Board of Water Commissioners member Herman Silver.
Yet the popular one-word "Silverlake" seems to be gaining steam. Even the L.A. Times' website uses the one-word "Silverlake" to describe the "hipster" enclave (above).
What does Google say? A search for "Silver Lake" and "Los Angeles" (to weed out other results) yields almost 1.1 million results. "Silverlake" and "Los Angeles"? Just half of that: About 573,000.
"Silver Lake" still wins.
2 comments:
Take it from a native Angeleno: it’s one word. I started visiting with my family in the late 70s (I had an Uncle who loved the flamenco at El CID) and moved in after college in the late 90s. It was always one word that entire time, and when I moved in there were still numerous old business signs from the 30s and 40s with it as one word: Silverlake.
Sometime during the late 2000s the last sig was removed and gentrification, which had been slow and steady, really took off soon after. Around the same time, the same developers that killed the Sunset Junction music festival started promoting it as two words: Silver Lake. It seemed as though they wanted to erase all memories of the neighborhood’s past as a haven for middle class Latino families, gay people, artists and weirdos. However, a few years after, the hipsters that moved in started to embrace the original form of the word. Many people mistakenly think that they have changed it, but the hipsters, knowingly or not, are actually going back to the original spelling.
I’m a decade late to this post, but I came across this because I was searching for information on an outstanding documentary from 1993 about a couple succumbing to AIDS called “Silverlake Life.” Anyway, as a native, I felt it was important to add some expertise to the discussion.
You are entitled to your own opinion. But just because you're native Angeleno doesn't make what you were saying is right. It's not one word. It's two separate words. You said, the term 'Silverlake life" is used most often by native Angelenos. It's just a made up term. Almost kind of a slung word. But yet it's still not proper. People who are not native in LA will not use one word "Silverlake". And most definitely, people who are not from this country. Silver Lake is more appropriate to use. It's universal term that anyone around the world can use.
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