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ESPN analyst roasted by Philadelphians for misunderstanding ‘Jawn’

‘Imagine trying to flex how big your brain is for the tl but end up pissing off a whole city instead.’

Photo of Stacey Ritzen

Stacey Ritzen

Jay Bilas parma jawn

Those who have grown up or resided in southeastern Pennsylvania are more than likely familiar with one extremely Philadelphian word.

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“Jawn,” as we Philly cats call it, is often “used to refer to a thing, place, person, or event that one need not or cannot give a specific name to.” It’s kind of like a regional word mashed up with an inside joke shared by an entire metropolitan area, so it can be confusing to those not in the know—which ESPN’s Jay Bilas evidently found out in an “egg on his face” kinda way.

On Christmas afternoon, Bilas tweeted out a photo of a standard-looking pizzeria shaker of Parmesan cheese with a cleverly-worded label that reads, “Parma Jawn.”

“Kids: Stay in school,” he commented.

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The “Parma Jawn” image has been floating around on the interwebs since June of 2018, where it first surfaced on Twitter, before spreading to Reddit and Imgur.

It’s unclear how or why Bilas happened to come across the image, which—to be completely fair to the former NBA center—would indeed seem like an amusing misspelling out-of-context.

Unfortunately for him, the people of Philadelphia are not exactly known for being, shall we say, a forgiving lot, and poor Bilas’ tweet was received accordingly. Many informed him of the error of his ways.

“And this item, quite correctly to Philadelphians, is Parma Jawn. And it is properly spelled,” Twitter user @sillybellysally responded.

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https://twitter.com/EightTons/status/1210199760356945921

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Yet others were, uh, less kind to Bilas.

“IF ONLY THEY PAID MORE ATTENTION IN CHEESE CLASS,” one user joked.

 

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Even Luke friggin’ Skywalker himself got in on the fun.

“You misspelled skool,” Mark Hamill tweeted in response.

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Bilas may want to perhaps rethink his next visit to Philly, lest there be a snowball with his name on it.

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