Local Terminology Meme

[sid]

After comparing the lists of people from Scotland, Louisiana and Canada, I had to give it a go.  Should be a mish-mosh of New York state (where my mother grew up), Wisconsin (where I grew up) and Indiana (where I've lived for 25 years):

1. A flowing body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks: Creek (NOT pronounced "crick".  I remember having that fight with my mother when we were visiting her parents *g*)

2. The thing you push around the grocery store:  Cart

3. A metal container to carry a meal in: Lunch box

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in: Skillet

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people: Couch

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof: Rain gutters and downspout

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening: Front porch

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages: Pop (but when I put it on my shopping list, it's "soda")

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup: Pancake

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself: Sub

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach:  Swim trunks

12. Shoes worn for sports: Tennies

13. Putting a room in order: Picking up

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark: Firefly 

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball: -----

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down: Teetertotter

17. How do you eat your pizza? Hold it flat, and start at the point

18. When private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff: Garage sale

19. The evening meal: Supper

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are: Basement

21. The thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places: Bubbler

Comments

[wraith816.livejournal.com]

17. How do you eat your pizza? Hold it flat, and start at the point


Jeeze, does none of my flist eat the crust first to get the boring part out of the way? LOL.

[msbeata.livejournal.com]

I eat the crust first because I save the best for last.

[sid]

Sometimes I don't eat the crust at all. And sometimes I cut the pizza into "party slices", so some pieces don't even have a crust!

[starting-gate.livejournal.com]

When I first got my lj one of our earliest conversations was about the 'soda or pop' question. I told you I called it 'mixer'. *g*

That little bug? We call potato bugs. I have no idea why.

I've never heard the term 'bubbler'! And I've never understood 'supper'. What's does 'dinner' mean, then? But I'm with you on most of the rest. :)

[sid]

"Bubbler" is almost purely Wisconsin. We had an actual bubbler on my street corner - the water continuously bubbled straight up - but all drinking fountains were known as bubblers, even if you had to push a handle to get a sideways stream.

Breakfast, lunch, supper. No dinner. *g*

(I remember the "mixer" conversation!)

[or-mabinogi.livejournal.com]

'Round these parts I've heard both Potato Bug and Pill Bug.

I flip flop between saying soda, pop, and coke. But I don't drink it that often anymore so it's hard to say what I use the most.

When I was growing up we used both supper and dinner. Generally, if it was an earlier evening meal, and light fixings, it was called supper. If it was later, and usually a heavy meal like pot roast, meatloaf, or some-such, then it was called dinner.

[sid]

We may have used the word dinner on Sundays, when we had our big meal sometime after church. It wasn't lunch or supper, so maybe it was dinner. Then I think we had a light supper of soup and sandwiches later on.

I just looked up the difference and apparently dinner means a big, full meal, whether eaten at noon or in the evening. If you had a sandwich for lunch, you probably follow it up with dinner, and if you had a big dinner at noon, you follow up with a light supper in the evening.

Supposedly. :-)

[starting-gate.livejournal.com]

I'm still confused!

Pass the mixer -- and something to mix it with -- and you can call them whatever you want. :D

[sid]

You got that right, sister!

[charmedstrange1.livejournal.com]

I have a regional take on the dinner/supper question. (See below.) *points down* :)

Also, due to same region, for me growing up it was a coke. Yeah, no matter what brand of soda it was. Now, as you see, it is soda. But mixer totally works. ;)

[starting-gate.livejournal.com]

What about restaurant menus? Does that make it more official?

As I recall, I've only seen (wherever I've traveled) breakfast, lunch and dinner. I've only heard/read the term 'supper' in movies, TV or books (and now on lj). Really! :)

[charmedstrange1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think breakfast, lunch, dinner is definately the official terminology. It's all I've seen on menus as well, even around here.

Lots of things that seem fictional really do exist in the South. Like supper, ghosts, and fried green tomatoes for example. ;)

[sid]

I think "Dinner" is standard on menus, yup - for the evening meal I mean. And "Lunch" for the noon menu.

But in my family it's always been "what's for supper?" :-)

[charmedstrange1.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up it was breakfast, dinner, supper. Nowadays it's breakfast, lunch, dinner. As we understood it from growing up in the rural South, the use of "dinner" for lunch was a holdover from earlier times when most folks were farmers and had their biggest meal of the day at noon.

It's what I grew up saying, but I left it behind when I got all cosmopolitan. *g* Lots of folks around here still say dinner/supper, including my sister.

Here, a poem for you involving "supper". Kinda.

"Off to bed," said Sleepy Head.
"Let's wait a while," said Slow.
"Put on the pot," said Greedy Gut, "We'll sup before we go."

*takes a bow*

That's something my mama used to recite. :)

Also- roly poly. I would turn over the big flat rocks of our flower garden to find them, and if you touched them (they are hard, not icky) they would roll into a perfect little ball. Very fun when you are 6 and have little entertainment but imagination. *g*

[sid]

Yup, everything I'm googling indicates that "dinner" means the big meal of the day, whether at noon or in the evening. And noon dinners were for the working class, farmers, servants. I guess at night they just gnawed on a crust of bread and fell into bed exhausted!

[zats-clear.livejournal.com]

#10 Hoagie
#12 Sneakers
#15 Rollie Pollie (sure I am spelling that wrong)
#16 SeeSaw
#18 Reallocation of OPUS (other peoples unwanted shit) - ok, that's just me, not regional
#21 Water Fountain

[sid]

#15 = I saw it being spelled Roly Poly on my flist.

#18 = Hee!

[zats-clear.livejournal.com]

thanks...knew it looked wrong!

[amnellwyvern.livejournal.com]

Yay! Someone else who calls it a teetertotter! :-D

[sid]

Yay!

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

4. Frying pan
8. Definitely soda
15. Sowbug, though I also have heard/used pillbug
19. Dinner
21. Water fountain (bubbler?! Wow!)

[sid]

I'm pretty sure at least one of my parents said "frying pan", but I'm a "skillet" gal.

Bubbler = Wisconsin, I have no idea why! And although we had lots of bubblers, if we had little bugs that curl up, I don't remember ever seeing one.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Pillbugs look like tiny, tiny armadillos without the noses and tails. They're about the size of a fingertip. Peek-chur (http://www.livingunderworld.org/amphibianArticles/images/0002_pillbug.jpg) for ju. They're pretty much everywhere in the US.

[sid]

Ah, well if I've seen 'em, I probably ran away instead of poking them with a stick. :-)

Not a bug fan. *shudder*

[inthe-parlance.livejournal.com]

I like your list. The little bug is a rolly polly. :)

[sid]

That's 3 ways I've seen that spelled now, and I've heard about 4 other names for them - but I still have no clue what you all are talking about! LOL

[inthe-parlance.livejournal.com]

I found some pics of them at this site (warning for pics of icky bugs!)

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/Pill.html

Scroll down to the one of several bugs next to a penny. They're called rolly polly because they roll up in a little ball when threatened (or when mean kids poke at them). :)

[sid]

I just have no recollection of these bugs! Or any of the names I've heard now. Hard to say if they look familiar, since I'm the type to either scream and run the other way or whack with a shoe rather than inspect the little buggers. ;-)

[ivorygates]

#1. Stream. #2. Cart. #3. Lunch-pail or bucket. #4. Fry-pan. #5. Sofa. #6. Gutters and downspout. #7. Front porch. #8. Soda. #9. Flapjacks. #10. Sub. #11. Swimsuit. #12. Tennie-rompers. #13. Tidying. #14. Glow-bug. #15. Sow bug. #16. Teetertotter. #17. You fold it over lengthwise and eat it pointy-end first. #18. Yard sale. #19. Dinner. #20. Basement. #21. Drinking fountain.

[sid]

#3. Ah, I had thought of bucket but not pail. The original terms from back when actual buckets and pails were being used.

#12. Tennie-rompers! How frivolous they sound!

#9. I think you're the first person I've seen who didn't answer "pancakes".

[ivorygates]

Yup! And "Lunchbucket" is more for kids and "Lunchpail" is more for grownups, really. It's that wacky 'native speaker preference' thing....

*g* Frivolous, yes. I only report the news.

I remember being really confused by the "International House of Pancakes." Because they were FLAPJACKS, goddammit. Or griddlecakes, if you were an effete whacko. We were all pretty sure that the only place you ate pancakes was in *Europe*....

[sid]

My hometown has an annual "Pancake Day", where for a small price the local Kiwanis Club serves you up pancakes, sausage, milk, coffee - all you could eat.

My family went every year when I was growing up. A couple of years ago, someone gave me a couple of free tickets when I was up there visiting, and my Dad and I went. It was all very nostalgic, even though the venue had changed.

[ivorygates]

*nod* We have a "Strawberry Supper" around here. Which is just peculiar on so many levels....