According to Dictionary.com (one of the best free resources online, incidentally), technically speaking, a hub is “the central part of a wheel … into which the spokes are inserted.”

Does this definition mean that individuals partial to using the term “The Hub” believe that Boston and perhaps its residents are the center of it all, where it’s at, and what it’s all about?

Sort of but not really, at least no more than New Yorkers think they’re home is a gigantic, bright red piece of fruit potentially filled with worms.

In Boston Online’s Wicked Good Guide to Boston English, the significance of the phrase is clarified and given a bit of historical context to take the (slightly) pompous, self-involved edge off.

What Boston is: The Hub of the Universe. First coined by writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, who actually referred to the State House as the hub of the solar system; today, a plaque in the sidewalk in front of Filene’s downtown commemorates the exact center of the universe (although they’ve mostly covered it over now with some sort of storage area).

The guide goes on to elaborate that when Cambridge-born poet and writer Holmes penned the phrase in his mid-19th century series of lightly comic essays titled The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, it was by no means complimentary. In fact, after one character states, “Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system,” another essentially responds that inhabitants of every region believe their hometown is the center of the galaxy.

How’s that for a little universal myopia? It’s not a strictly Boston thing at all.

Post from: The Boston Traveler