the language meme

[cellio]

I'm 40 and I grew up in Pittsburgh.

What do you call...

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks?

Stream. Maybe a creek (not "crick"). A creek is smaller than a stream; an average person should be able to jump across a creek.

2. The thing you push around the grocery store?

Shopping cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in?

Huh? Consensus seems to be that we're talking about lunch boxes, but they're plastic these days and I think were when I was a kid, and anyway, I carry my lunch in a decidedly non-metal bag. :-)

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in?

(No bacon here!) Frying pan or skillet; the words are interchangable.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people?

Couch. I'll accept sofa as synonymous, but it's not the word I use.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof?

Gutters (horizontal) and downspouts (vertical).

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening?

Porch.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?

Pop. "Soda" is a concoction involving pop and ice cream.

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup?

Pancake. For the Aussies: we have several kinds of syrup, maple and various fruit-based ones being the most common. If you go to a pancake house you may well encounter all of: maple, blueberry, raspberry, boysenberry, apricot, and several more. What is "golden syrup"?

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

I suppose they're talking about hoagies here (known by some as subs). While I grew up with only the word "hoagie" to describe this kind of sandwich, my first job was at Rudy's House of Submarines. Go figure.

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach?

Assuming the men are headed for the water... swimsuits. Same word as for women; I don't distinguish.

12. Shoes worn for sports?

Tennis shoes. We didn't have different shoes for different sports when I was a kid; they were all tennis shoes.

13. Putting a room in order?

Cleaning up, which is different from cleaning (the latter involves the removal of dust, cat hair, etc). The phrase "redd up" is native to Pittsburgh, but I have never uttered those words except in conversations like this one.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark?

Firefly.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball?

This description means nothing to me. Several of my friends describe it as a "roly poly", which is also meaningless to me. ksnell tried to further clarify for me, but lo, I am a clueless city kid, even though I grew up in the suburbs.

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?

See-saw.

17. How do you eat your pizza?

(Hey, that's not a language question!)

Pick up slice with left hand, eat starting from point, frequently discard bones (the remnant of crust that contains no sauce or toppings and that is usually overcooked to my taste). If the slice is too droopy to be held this way, I'll use a fork in my right hand to help support the piece. Failing that, I'll flip the point over onto the rest of the piece and pick it up. Failing all that, it's time to get out the knife and fork.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?

Garage sale. Also yard sale.

19. What's the evening meal?

Dinner. The canonical meals are breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not breakfast, dinner, and supper. This is true even if the large meal that day is lunch.

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

Basement. I grew up knowing this as the cellar (the term my parents use); I have no idea when I switched to basement.

Comments

[kmelion.livejournal.com]

15. Pill Bug....they're the acrobats in the movie A Bug's Life.

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

Pancake. For the Aussies: we have several kinds of syrup, maple and various fruit-based ones being the most common. If you go to a pancake house you may well encounter all of: maple, blueberry, raspberry, boysenberry, apricot, and several more. What is "golden syrup"?

If it's the stuff they have in England, it's the same as treacle. It is like golden colored molasses. Basically, very thick liquid sugar. We used to eat treacle baked into a cake-like thing that is sort of like sponge cake. Really, really sweet. Yum!

Language

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Oh, this will be fun... (I remember where the "faucet/Spigot" line was on the US Map so clearly... in 1982...)

I'm 47 (48 in two weeks), I grew up in Greensboro, NC., with a Georgia cracker father and a New Jersey Socialite mother. I moved to Boston at 19 and Michigan in 1979 and in California in 1994....

My Q&A are in this color, in case someone wants to cut and paste theirs in.

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks?

If easily stepped over, a creek; if wide enough you have to jump over and a relatively fast flow, a stream; if in a sharply-angled culvert at the front of your yard, a ditch.

2. The thing you push around the grocery store?

a cart. or, a grocery cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in?

A lunch box.

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in?

frying pan. Skillets are electric or cast iron. And you use a spatula or a fork to turn them over, as opposed to a rubber scraper, which one uses to get the last bit of batter off the side of a bowl.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people?

Couch. Sofas are bigger and have upholstery that you can get dirty so you don't sit on them.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof?

Gutters (run alongside the roof) and rainspouts (vertical)

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening?

Porch. The stoop is where the uncovered steps are.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?>/b>
a Coke, as in "You guys want some coke? We have Reg'lar, Dite, ornge, Doctuh Peppuh, Sevm-up, and maybe even some Pepsi in the fridge."

Pop is what my daughter drinks (born in Michigan, moved to California at 16), and soda is what my son drinks (born in michigan, but moved to California when he was 4).

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup?
pancakes with maple syrup. My dad ate flapjacks, however, and wanted "golden syrup", which is dark Karo or other corn syrup (Blech).

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself?
A Sub sandwich, altho in Michigan they called them "Jersey Subs." These are sandwiches sort of like Dagwoods only on a long bun instead of square slices of regular bread.

[goljerp]

I put my answers up in my journal.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Stream. Maybe a creek (not "crick"). A creek is smaller than a stream; an average person should be able to jump across a creek.

Hmm. I have these reversed--that is, a river is something that you can't wade across, a creek is wider than 4' but crossable under one's own power and usually not steeply sloped, and a stream is smaller than that--anything running at the bottom of a ditch is probably a stream. The next smaller size is "streamlet", but that doesn't come up often.
This may be an effect of the region I grew up in (Guilderland, NY). All the local small waterflows were called either "____ Creek" or "____kill" or, for increased redundancy, "____kill Creek". ("-kill" is apparently the Dutch suffix for creek).

...actually, now that I think about it, I almost never use the word "creek" except in reference to waterflows around where I grew up--encountering one somewhere else, I might say "large stream". Or maybe not. Obviously, experimentation is required.

As for pronunciation, the waterflows are usually "creek", but if you've put yourself into a difficult situation, then you're "up a crick".

[jducoeur]

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?

Pop. "Soda" is a concoction involving pop and ice cream.

Fascinating -- I haven't come across this particular construction of "soda" on its own before. I mean, we have the concept, but it's always specifically an "ice cream soda".

"Soda" vs. "pop" has always been my favorite way of distinguishing East Coasters from inlanders. One of those distinctively memorable Pennsic moments was going shopping at the then-King Valoo, and coming across an entire wall of "Generic Red Pop". Kind of scary, really -- like a moment out of "Repo Man"...

I suppose they're talking about hoagies here (known by some as subs).

Yes -- this was a difference that I had to learn when I moved north from my native New Jersey (hoagies) to Boston (subs).

Of course, the biggest difference was in what they call Potstickers -- they're usually Pan-Fried Dumplings in New Jersey (or were when I was growing up), and they're frequently Peking Ravioli in Boston. Far as I know, we're the only place in the world that uses that peculiar term, a strange regionalism that seems to be slowly dying out...

17. How do you eat your pizza?

Having grown up with Greasy, Floppy New Jersey Pizza (mmm, grease), I usually pick the slice up with my right hand, and fold it in half lengthwise, with my index finger in the fold and the other fingers holding it up from the outside. Then lift to the mouth quickly, to try to get the tip into your mouth before the cheese all slides off. Not efficient, but an enjoyable form of consumption.

I tend to save a piece or two of pepperoni to go with the bones, if it's good enough pizza to make the bones worthwhile. The mark of really good pizza is that the bones are worth eating -- crisp and flavorful bread, not just dry cardboard...

Basement v. Cellar

[psu-jedi.livejournal.com]

This is funny to me, because in the house I grew up in, it was the cellar, but I now use basement. Why? Mainly because the house I grew up in was built around 1900, and we called it a cellar. At some point it actually had dirt floors, but then someone (before my parents purchased it in 1962) cemented the floors. But we still called it a cellar. I think the dirt floors is what distinguishes a cellar from a basement, and since most homes built these days have finished basements, they're no longer referred to as cellars. At least the answer works for me.