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This city has a set of laws that are enforced by New York's finest, and then it has a set of unspoken rules that are upheld by everyone else. If you don't want a grizzled native yelling at you to go back to the midwest—or to be teased mercilessly by your friends—you better get with the program and never do ANY of the following.
1. Pronounce Houston Street like the city in Texas.
It’s “How-ston,” noob.
2. Bring Chateau Diana to a party
It’s not an inexpensive bottle of Chardonnay, it’s disgusting bodega “wine product,” and everyone knows it.
3. Say you're "in line"
You're "on line," obviously.
4. Encourage Showtime dancers on a crowded train.
If you live here long enough, you WILL be kicked in the face by one of them. Stop clapping.
5. Take home couches or mattresses from the street
Two words: Bed bugs.
6. Suggest Times Square as a fun spot to meet for dinner
No self-respecting New Yorker would be caught dead in Bubba Gump Shrimp or Olive Garden.
7. Wait for the walk sign to cross an empty street
You’re slowing us all down, law abiding citizen.
8. Confuse the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge
One is an iconic architectural marvel, the other will get you from Brooklyn to the LES. Simple.
9. Charge onto a subway car without letting people out first
If you do this, you deserve to be trampled.
10. Own a ferret
A) That's still illegal and B) they’re strange-looking rat-weasels.
11. Say you grew up in New York City when you're really from Westchester or Long Island
No one cares how often you rode the train into Manhattan, or how close you lived to the Queens border. You grew up in the burbs. Accept it.
12. Order pizza from Famiglia
“Yummy! I love rubber cheese over glorified ketchup,” said no one ever. No pizza is better than bad pizza.