In the communication of spatial meanings, word-of-mouth instruction, at least in the modern city and at least for some people, appears to play a crucial part. My informants, for example, reported again and again that much of their understanding of the city depended on being told about this or that location or type of location by this or that family member, friend, or acquaintance. As noted in Chapter Four, these same people exhibited a startlingly underdeveloped vocabulary for describing how people looked, but a well-developed vocabulary for describing locations and whom one might expect to find in them.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 572