Southeastern Massachusetts or SouthCoast? [OPINION]

WBSM Digital Managing Editor and newsman extraordinaire Tim Weisberg and I had a "tastes great, less filling" kind of exchange on Monday morning, and I want your opinion to prove to him that I was right and he was wrong. I am right, you know.

Keep in mind, Tim edits my online written material and publishes it on our website and various social media platforms. For that, I am eternally grateful. He is a pro and I am a hack when it comes to that sort of thing. Tim makes the on-air talent look good online, as our talent generally lays with the spoken word and not necessarily the written one.

But every now and again, Tim and I disagree about a word, a phrase, or even an opinion and what usually follows is a Facebook Messenger exchange. Monday was one of those days.

Here is the rub: in a piece I prepared for Monday on poor driving habits, I referenced the area as "Southeastern Massachusetts." When Tim edited and published the piece, it said "SouthCoast."

I detest the term SouthCoast. It is grammatically incorrect and is not locatable on a map. In short, there is no SouthCoast. It simply does not exist. Southeastern Massachusetts does exist. You can find it on the map. The term SouthCoast was created as a marketing tool by a former editor of the Standard-Times a couple of decades ago. I hate it.

When on Monday morning I noticed Tim had switched out the proper and grammatically correct term Southeastern Massachusetts for the grammatically incorrect and non-existent SouthCoast, I sent him a message asking that he change it back. He refused.

Tim said the term SouthCoast is more identifiable with the audience. Perhaps that is true for those in the audience who are grammatically incorrect. The rest of us prefer Southeastern Massachusetts.

Please vote below or list your preference in the comments under this post on our Facebook page.

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.