Regional variations in nomenclature

April 10, 2004 10:53 AM

Some people call them Hoagies, others call them grinders... Where I live what most people call pop is called soda, and water fountains are called Bubblers. What regional phrases does your area have?
posted by drezdn to writing & language (42 comments total)

for the US: The Harvard University Dialect Map Survey

check out the state by state data - interesting.

(in michigan people cook with soda, drink pop, drive through traffic circles, and nobody has any idea what the hell a bubbler is.)

(via monkeyfilter)
posted by caution live frogs at 11:12 AM on April 10, 2004

"ya'll"...tells me you lived in Texas.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:14 AM on April 10, 2004

huevon
posted by andrew cooke at 11:19 AM on April 10, 2004

Sprinkles (the coloured candies for the likes of ice cream sundaes) are sometimes referred to as 'jimmies,' I believe.

In the south, "sweet tea" or even just "tea" means iced tea with ridiculous amounts of sugar, "unsweet tea" being the opposite. If I ask for iced tea, they look at me like I'm crazy...and don't even try asking for hot tea down here.
posted by fionab at 11:58 AM on April 10, 2004

Some near-dead New England regionalisms:

"tonic" for pop/soda. Usage: "There's tonic in the fridge. I think it's Coke and ginger ale."

"spuckie" for hoagie/sub. Even some New Englanders will think that I'm making that up, but it's still in very limited use. There's a shop near the chocolate factory in south Dorchester that still advertises them on their signs.

"Spa" for "corner market". It implies that there's a soda fountain, but it's more likely that there was one many years ago. If you're in New England and you a sign for a spa, see if they sell food before you ask the guy behind the counter for a facial or you probably won't get what you want.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:19 PM on April 10, 2004

If I remember correctly, some places in Rhode Island call milkshakes, "cabinets."
posted by anathema at 12:27 PM on April 10, 2004 [1 favorite]

hella.
posted by fishfucker at 12:54 PM on April 10, 2004

When I lived in Virginia, "gyro" was pronounced "jie-roh," the same first syllable as "gyrate." Here in Oregon it's sometimes "hero," sometimes "gee-roh" with a "g" like "gosh" not "josh."
posted by croutonsupafreak at 1:16 PM on April 10, 2004

In East Texas shopping carts are called buggies. Personally, I think of a buggy as something the Amish ride around in.
posted by yangwar at 1:30 PM on April 10, 2004

In Minnesota we have 'Rambler' for a one-story house and 'Hot Dish' for a Cassarole (ie. Tator Tot Hot Dish). Sometimes a small river or a creek is pronounced 'crick'.
posted by graventy at 1:37 PM on April 10, 2004

you may want to check this out too. and this revealing mefi thread about attitudes towards variation. i (heart) regional dialect variation.

for me? it's, hm: "soda" (but everyone in my town says "pop"; the generic brand at wegman's is even called "wpop"), "potato bug," "porch," "sub," "sneakers," "aunt" and "ant" sound the same, so do "pin" and "pen," a "bucket" (big, sometimes square, used by custodians to mop floors) is different from a "pail" (tiny round flimsy thing for sand at the beach), it's a "couch" not a "sofa" or "divan" or "davenport" (ick), we never use "pisser" locally either as good or bad (i had no idea what it meant when i first heard it), nor do we use "anymore" for "these days" ("they sure are building lots of malls anymore" made no sense to me the first time i heard it), and the "needs washed" phrase is never used either. "shopping cart," it's always a "creek" not a "crick," "garage sale," "dust bunny," "caramel" has three syllables, "firefly," "milkshake," and "i've got first dibbs" or "i call shotgun" for the car seat.
posted by ifjuly at 2:01 PM on April 10, 2004

Rhode Islanders do indeed call milkshakes (or a variation thereof) "cabinets". They go wonderfully with grinders.
posted by yerfatma at 2:04 PM on April 10, 2004

Soda where I live, but when my son moved to Oregon, he picked up pop from the local usage there. This has been linked lots of times but what the heck, always interesting. And we call the aforementioned sandwiches subs (a la Subway) around here.
posted by Lynsey at 2:17 PM on April 10, 2004

If you've ever gone to the spa for a spuckie and tonic, get thee to this site. (Wicked Good Guide to Boston English)
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:30 PM on April 10, 2004

All forms of soda pop are referred to as Coke where I grew up [backwoods Indiana]. As in:

Y'all want a Coke?

- Yeah.

What kind?

- Mountain Dew.

Also, people say 'grocery store' instead of just 'grocery' and crayfish are called 'crawdads.'
posted by sciurus at 2:32 PM on April 10, 2004

Here in Pleasanton, CA (Bay Area) we say hecka instead of hella.
posted by AmaAyeRrsOonN at 2:36 PM on April 10, 2004

If you really want to look into this, check out the Dictionary of American Regional English, which is being published out of an office in the floor below me at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It's a hella cool reference book. They just published the fourth of a planned five volumes. The dictionary is modeled on the Oxford English Dictionary, attempting to chart the history of regional usages through time (and space). A well-stocked library reference section should have a copy.

(Full disclosure - I just finished a short-term job doing web searching for DARE as they prepare a supplement for the first volume, published in 1985 before there was much of an Internet to speak of.)
posted by UKnowForKids at 2:38 PM on April 10, 2004

It isn't a "hoagie", "sub", "grinder", or even "hero". It's a "wedge". Yonkers (and the Bronx) represent!
posted by TimeFactor at 2:51 PM on April 10, 2004

Runners are sneakers/athletic shoes/tennies.
posted by fionab at 3:53 PM on April 10, 2004

...and don't even try asking for hot tea down here.

Maybe at mom and pop restaurants. You can get hot tea at the golden corral anywhere in alabama. You don't get much more southern than that.
posted by justgary at 4:17 PM on April 10, 2004

I second the DARE recommendation. It's an *amazing* resource. Particularly interesting is the great amount of work on common names for plants and animals: it's not just soft drinks we call different things, but the same species of trees, fish, weeds, bird, etc., may have different names in different parts of the country.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:53 PM on April 10, 2004

If you go into most diners in northern New England and order a "frappe" (but don't pronounce the e) you'll get a milkshake. And if you want a black coffee, don't call it "regular," that'll get you cream and two sugars. Those candy pellets you get on your ice cream are "jimmies" regardless of flavor, although that seems to be changing.

In Maine, the coastline north of Portland is "Down East" regardless of where you are in relation to it geographically, although most of the lobstahmen are losing their waterfront property to people "from away" (a phrase usually connotating some degree of scorn, though not always), but we don't mind the "snow birds" as much, the folks who regularly come to Maine in the summah but leave in the fall. We say wicked, a lot, and other odd modifiers such as "awfully" and "terribly" are also common.
posted by nelleish at 6:11 PM on April 10, 2004

In Cincinnati instead of asking someone to repeat themselves or use the crude "huh?" or "what?" we say "please?"
posted by Mick at 6:21 PM on April 10, 2004

whipping shitties! very minnesotan.

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/staticmaps/q_77.html

i second or third the harvard study. interesting stuff, and some of it makes you go, "What the hell, who names THAT something?"
posted by jeribus at 7:11 PM on April 10, 2004

sciurus: I grew up in northwest Florida and I also use Coke to mean any type of soda pop.

I say clicker when I mean remote control. I never thought that was unusual until last year, when I made the mistake of saying it in front of my boyfriend. After he stopped giggling at me, I was informed that only people with "se-VERE" southern accents use the term.

I got a baffled look from a Rhode Island friend when I used "fixing to" to mean "about to do something," as in "I'm fixing to go to the store."
posted by Hypharse at 8:19 PM on April 10, 2004

I second all Florida phrases mentioned so far and would add "put up" to mean "put an object in its storage place".

"Put up that comic book and do your homework!"
posted by 4easypayments at 9:13 PM on April 10, 2004

jeribus, as a Minnesotan, who asked a lot of other Minnesotans, none of us had heard of whipping shitties before the Harvard survey (which I'll otherwise fourth). In fact, I've asked people from all over about the shitties, and no one has heard this! Basically everyone agreed on "doing donuts." I had never heard of such a thing before the survey.

And I firmly believe "y'all" has its place in the English language. It's got that inclusive second person plural feeling like vosotros.
posted by whatzit at 9:50 PM on April 10, 2004

It's Coke, unless you really need to be generic, then it's a soft drink. Pop, soda, and soda pop mark you as being from somewhere else. Y'all is the plural of you. Grocery store is redundant; grocery will do. A sandwich on a log narrow bun is a sub or submarine.

My college sweetheart, a Bostonian of 100% Irish descent, confounded me by drawering a picture but storing his socks in a chest of draws.

Oh, and the abbreviation of television is pronounced teeVEE, not TEEvee.
posted by Alylex at 10:45 PM on April 10, 2004

I'm a Minnesotan who'd never heard of the Harvard survey until after I'd finished whipping shitties in the parking lot.
posted by hootch at 11:06 PM on April 10, 2004

I used to say Spice when I meant sweets, and Lake for Play
As in ... "Does tha wunt some spice?" and "Are you coming out to Lake?"
Sadly R.P. (recieved pronunciation) and the magic of Globalisation has meant I no longer use these words.
posted by seanyboy at 1:54 AM on April 11, 2004

I know I'm a little late, but if anyone is still around, I have a secondary question that obsesses me: is there a difference between tap and spigot (which I pronounce "spicket")?

I love these things: I grew up in Southern California and live in New York now, but still say certain things that have their cause in my family's roots in Mass. I would suspect this is more common in California, since everyone is from everywhere else, so family word choice seems to prevail, even if you know what everyone else means. Or maybe I'm just stubborn.
posted by dame at 6:59 AM on April 11, 2004

A tap is indoors, a spigot is outdoors, generally. I think.

My favorite regionalism is "fixing to", which means "on the verge of". Also, "tump over", which means to overturn or capsize, as in, "Sit down! This here bass boat is fixin' to tump over!"

Working as a plumber, I hear "sweat" for "solder" a lot. As in, "Come help me with this when you're through sweating those fittings."

And the greenish juice left on the plate when you are through eating your (turnip or collard) greens is called "pot likker", and you use your cornbread to "sop" it.

And the best response to a nay-sayer or a whiner is to fix them with a steely glance and state flatly: "Cain't never could."
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:17 AM on April 11, 2004

Thanks BitterOldPunk. Everyone I've tried to explain that difference to looks at me like I'm insane.

Also: to many people, "jimmies" is racist. I would think hard before using that term in lieu of "sprinkles."
posted by dame at 7:53 AM on April 11, 2004

An 2-yr old post about regional phrases on the blue (though centers on Pop/Soda/Coke debate).
posted by ALongDecember at 8:07 AM on April 11, 2004

Don't forget the sniveling southern subjunctive: "might could."

"I might could go to the store later..."
posted by jpburns at 8:17 AM on April 11, 2004

I've always said sprinkles but now I'm curious - why is "jimmies" racist?
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:05 AM on April 11, 2004

I think the reasoning goes something like little and brown > Jim Crow > jimmies.

But some cursory googling suggests that such reasoning is folk etymology, and "jimmies" were named after the guy that ran the sprinkle machine. Chocolate came first, so that's why some people call the brown ones "jimmies" and the rainbow ones "sprinkles."

Folk etymology and strange reasoning though it may be, a number of people do still consider the term inappropriate, so I just say "sprinkle."
posted by dame at 9:43 AM on April 11, 2004

For me it's sub (not hoagie or grinder—and I've heard that the difference between the two has to do with the serving temperature) and soft drink. My parents still use the term "icebox" to refer to that big thing in the kitchen (they're in their 50s now.)

An ex-girlfriend of mine insisted on stressing the T in TV. I thought it was endearing at the time.

And this has more to do with adopted slang and less to do with regionalisms, but for some of my friends and I, "I'm going to pick up some beer and a pack of cigarettes" becomes "I'm going to pick up some northsides and a pack of douglases."
posted by emelenjr at 12:36 PM on April 11, 2004

Also, "whole 'nother" (whole another, but the "a" is always silent) instead of "whole other", as in, "That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish."
posted by Alylex at 6:26 PM on April 11, 2004

Ahem. As a former Wisconsinite, I have to point out that water fountains and bubblers are different things. Dammit. Fountains send a stream of water out at an angle, but bubblers bubble water straight up. (Incidentally, the photo on the linked page's logo is of a fountain, not a bubbler. I was unable to find any photos of true bubblers online.)
posted by mrbula at 6:28 PM on April 11, 2004

"Aunt" or "Aunt" (meaning "ant ," or "ont")?
posted by Sinner at 6:55 PM on April 11, 2004

Born and raised in SoCal.

I've lived in BC for four years now, and I still get chuckles over certain phrases (candy bar/chocolate bar, bathe/bath, soda/pop, etc.) and pronounciations (pahsta/paasta, de-kal/deckle, and don't get me started on garage). The thing is, my family says I sound Canadian.

I lived in Texas for six years. I left five years ago and I still say "y'all."
posted by deborah at 5:45 PM on April 14, 2004