Get Your Feet OFF THE….
I found this picture at MoCo Loco.com.
Ginger’s post the other day about the difference between barbeque and a cook-out made me think of some other regional terms, as well as some that might just depend on the era in which one grew up.
For example, a sofa has several other names: Davenport, Settee, Chesterfield, and Couch are the ones that come to my mind. My grandpa used to call it a Davenport or a Chesterfield, and he was born in Oklahoma, but came to California as a young man, so I’m not sure where that came from.
I grew up saying ‘soda’ when I wanted a soda. The CEO of my company is from Michigan, and he calls it ‘pop’. I once dated a guy whose father called it ‘Coke’, no matter what kind of soda he was talking about. I remember him asking me on his way out the door if I wanted a Coke. I said, “sure”. He said, “What kind?” Weird, to me. To me, if you offered someone a Coke, they were going to get a Coca-Cola.
Here in California, we barbecue as a verb, and it just means to grill something on the bbq grill. Or, you can go to a restaurant and eat BBQ, and usually, though not always, that will mean the more traditional slow cooking smokeyness is going to be involved. So we kind of know the difference between the verb and the noun, unless we invite you over for a BBQ, which means you’re invited to a party where we’ll be grilling things on the BBQ, and most likely not the slow smokey way that is traditional for a restaurant or a proper southern BBQ.
To further complicate matters, what we in California call “Chow Mein”, on the East Coast is called “Lo Mein”. If you order Chow Mein there, you’ll get crunchy noodles, not soft. The crunchy ones remind me of the Chung King we used to make sometimes when I was a kid, and then I have to start singing the dumb jingle that goes with the old commercial…
When we lived in Philly, if you wanted a thick, rich milkshake, you had to ask for a frappe. If you asked for a milkshake, it still had ice cream, but it was so thin that it was closer to chocolate milk. Anyone else have this problem, or was it just the places we went?
Of course, there are the British/American differences in English, such as Lift/Elevator, Chips/Fries, Crisps/Chips, Braces/Suspenders, and Nappies/Diapers, to name just a few. But what other North American things can you think of with several names?
21 Comments
Shelliza
There’s the hood of a car that’s reffered to as the “bonnet” in Guyana and I think England, a truck that is also known as a “lorry”.
Here in Florida, it’s the couch, and I’m still stuck on saying “Pop” from my Canada days.
Ml
I think they call the trunk the “booth” in England.
I always called it “pop”, but Gator got me saying soda. I think the Canadians call the garbage disposal a “garba-rator” , I think…
ally bean
Grinders/subs. Both are large meat fillled sandwiches. My roommate from Boston called them grinders. I call them subs.
J
Oh yeah, a sub out here, a hoagie in Philly. Also in Philly, every street corner downtown had a steak shop. Took me awhile to realize they weren’t all steak houses, but they all were selling cheesesteak sandwiches. 🙂
Py Korry
“Bathroom,” “Washroom,” “Toilet”
kookiejar
Great topic! I’m smack dab in the middle of the US where we sit on the couch while enjoying our pop. I understand that in the South if you ask for tea, you automatically get sweetened tea, and that they don’t ever serve it unsweetened. Can anyone confirm that?
Cherry
I don’t know if anyone else has heard of this, but my new hubby calls a vacuum, a sweeper.
My mom calls soda, soda pop. She’s from Colorado, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.
Friends from Canada have a few:
Backpack/Backsack
Lunch box/Lunch Kit
Mac & Cheese/Kraft Dinner
Amy
I’ll second the grinder/sub/hoagie/hero thing. Also, if you are anywhere and a “steak and cheese” is on the menu, do not be fooled into thinking it will be the same as a cheesesteak.
Amy
Oh, and my grandparents-on both sides–always called the refridgerator an “icebox”.
Autumn's Mom
My grandmother referred to her couch as a chesterfield. And I use soda and coke as a generic term interchangably. I guess if you are a die hard coke fan, you wouldn’t do that. I get it. It’s like saying Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper are the same. Is Pibb ok? Well, no actually it’s different. and gross.
Kvetch
Oh this is my favorite topic!
I call it a sofa. I’m from Philly but now in the Midwest where it is a couch.
In Philly it’s pocketbooks. I now carry purses.
I put Jimmies on my ice cream. The term sprinkles is, well, stupid.
I never heard of frappe, and grew up with milkshakes in Philly. Someone was pulling your leg.
All around me people drink pop. In my house, it’s soda.
And as you know, there is nothing like a hoagie. A sub will never be a hoagie, or a grinder (which is a hot hoagie). The difference is the bread and that’s because of the premier Philly water. (Wooder to youse guys who have never lived there)
Do you vacation on go on a vacation?
My friend from Wales goes on holiday. To me a holiday is a day my kids are home from school.
How about what’s on your feet. I wear sneakers, not tennis shoes, or tennies or gym shoes — which is what my daughter has started to call them.
And I’m old but I love the word knapsack, not backpack. Say knapsack and people look at you like you were born in the 60’s.
OH.
And here near Chicago, years ago, a friend of mine said she was going to a show. Woo hoo, good for you, a show! She meant a flipping MOVIE.
There is also the issue of the word “the”. Here they say, “My kids are going to Prom.” I always said “the Prom.” I’m not sure how that differs but it would be like saying I’m going to Mall. I’m going to Restaurant. I’m going to Store.
Do you take a shower or get one?
Maya's Granny
I went to Missouri one summer for two weeks and I don’t know if it was a regional speech difference or just sad, but what they call a salad bar is almost totally devoid of raw anything. And soft drinks (another variant) are called soda pop.
The trunk of the car is called the boot in England, where they call gas petrol and to table something at a meeting means to talk about it.
I well remember reading Winnie the Pooh and being very puzzled at how Christopher Robin could get his thumbs behind his brades.
dew
Since I moved a lot as a kid, all my life I dealt with differences like soda or pop (I say pop). And then! I married an Englishman and 6 years later, I am STILL asking him what words he uses mean. I don’t know whether the English have far more slang words than Americans do or if he’s just an extremely slangy person. It’s nice, though, when reading a book written by an English person. I had to ask him what “slag” meant yesterday. Not only did he confirm what I figured out from context in the book (it means slut or skank, not nice words at all) but he then also gave me the etymology for the word’s two different meanings, as well as going into an explanation of what dross is. Good thing we’re both linguistics nerds! Some of the things he says are grating for me, like “different to” instead of “different from” but then again, most people from my own country say “different than” which is equally grating. And we like to argue good-naturedly over the pronunciation of such words as oregano or controversy.
Chrissy
Oh my gosh, J! This is such a great post! I was JUST thinking about these things the other day! I teach ESL (English as a second language) and I run into these kinds of things all the time!
When I taught in Japan, my co-teacher was from England. He used to always ask me for a “rubber” and I’d be shocked! He meant an “eraser”, but apparently a rubber rubs the mistakes away. Hmmm. That wasn’t the thing I was thinking about! LOL! There was also the jumper/sweater issue. To me a jumper wasn’t something you put on when you’re cold. Anyway….
I realized that even in Canadian and American English, though very similar, we have some variants in the language. Even more interesting, we have so many variants in vocabulary within Canada. Running shoes/Sneakers, Chocolate bar/Candy bar, lollipop/sucker…
Gina
I am drawing a complete blank here, although the only ones I can think of right now are the British ones. I guess my living only in SoCal is showing!
hellomelissa
this just makes me laugh. i grew up in michigan AND indiana… one that calls a soda a “coke,” and the other calls it a “pop.”
i was so confused!
now i just drink wine. 🙂
lalunas
I know this lady who calls dinner-dinosaurs
Kitchen- chicken
Julie- Judy
Pop- soft drink
Genevieve- Ve-ver..
and the list goes on and on
Christine
J, I chose you as a Rockin’ Girl Blogger 😉 Check out my little shout out in my last post.
Lotus
I came across a few interesting ones when living in Pittsburgh:
we use shopping carts, they use buggies
we eat bologna, they eat jumbo
we use rubber bands, they use gum bands
my husband remembers that they called umbrellas bumper chutes
fun post!
star shine
My dad brings a knapsack camping and has catsup on his burgers.
🙂
star shine
It’s very late at night and everyone in my house is sleeping, which is when I love reading blogs. I just read your 100 Things for the first time. Great list! I need to do that meme. It must have been like taking a very good inventory of yourself. 🙂