Whatchamacallit

Madge Bumstead

Madge Bumstead

Well-known member
Ken Anderson's post related to tennis shoes, got me thinking about this one.

Seems we all have our own words for certain things, tennis shoes being one of them. I for one, from the time I was a kid have always referred to tennis shoes as sneakers or runners, and that's just the beginning of the variations I know of.

A few years back I mentioned "soothers" in conversation and the party looked at me as though I had one eye. What are soothers they asked? You know I replied, for babies, soothers, pacifiers. From the time I was a kid they were soothers in my world.

A few more I say...

Sofa, loveseat, chesterfield - I say couch
Cutlery drawer - I call it the silverware drawer (and no, there is no real sterling in the silverware drawer in our house)
Tennis shoes - I call them sneakers or runners, and most recently have adopted the term - trainers.
Shopping carts - my husband calls them wagons.

More to come as I think of others!
 
I grew up calling it a couch, though a smaller one was a loveseat. I was aware that a sofa was a couch, but that wasn't a commonly used word in the area I grew up in. Chesterfields were cigarettes. We also called it a silverware drawer, although I doubt we had any actual silver in it.
 
I, too, refer to a sofa as a couch. I also have a silverware drawer in my kitchen, but refer to the eating utensils as cutlery.

I recall entering a grocery store while on vacation in Myrtle Beach, and the woman in front of me turned around and--right in my face--addressed her daughter who must have been behind me. In her slow, southern drawl, she said "Charlotte...Get me a buggy." It caught me off guard. I almost laughed in her face. I primarily think of a buggy as something pulled by a horse, and as a baby stroller as a distant second...but never a shopping cart.
 
Regarding the word "cutlery" (because I wondered)...

The word cutlery derives from the Middle English word 'cuteler' and this in turn derives from Old French "coutelier" which comes from "coutel"; meaning knife (modern French: couteau). The word's early origins can be seen in the Latin word 'culter' (knife), still retained in the agricultural tool of a coulter. (see pic below)

A collected set of silverware is called a canteen of cutlery, typically referring to the polished wooden compartmental case in which they are stored.

A coulter is the red knife that cuts the soil ahead of the plow blade:
4FzNUu5.jpeg
 
Mary Robi said:
Davenport is what we called it growing up. I say couch now.

I say cart or shopping cart. My grandma always said buggy.

Sweeper, vacuum or hoover?

Who else called the living room, the "front room" like my grandma did?

Cupboard or pantry?
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it, we used to call it a davenport when I was a kid. I've not heard (or used) that word in ages. The internet says that term came from A.H. Davenport & Company, a furniture manufacturer that ended in the early 1900s.

I think my parents used that term to elevate the status of our plastic-covered couch.
 
John Brunner said:
Now that you mention it, we used to call it a davenport when I was a kid. I've not heard (or used) that word in ages. The internet says that term came from A.H. Davenport & Company, a furniture manufacturer that ended in the early 1900s.

I think my parents used that term to elevate the status of our plastic-covered couch.
Click to expand...
I remember those plastic covered couches so well! Cigarette burns and all! 🚬
 
Mary Robi said:
Davenport is what we called it growing up. I say couch now.

I say cart or shopping cart. My grandma always said buggy.

Sweeper, vacuum or hoover?

Who else called the living room, the "front room" like my grandma did?

Cupboard or pantry?
Click to expand...
Living room (mostly), though do remember the term - front room. As kids the relaxing room in the house was called the TV room.

Cupboard for cabinets above the kitchen counter, pantry for the walk-in variety.
 
Growing up in north Idaho, we called the couch a daveno, or sometimes a Davenport or couch. I think that a shopping cart is called that almost everywhere except here in the South, where they are called a buggy.
A soda drink was called “pop”, and I learned when I moved here that no one had any idea what I was asking for when I used that word.
My shoes were tennis shoes, or “tenny runners “, and I only recently heard them called trainers.
I think we called the living room by that name, although I am familiar with calling it the front room. Ours was off to the side when you came inside the door, so the dining room was our front room.

My dad called an old car a “jitney”, and a small car was a puddle jumper.
 
John Brunner said:
I, too, refer to a sofa as a couch. I also have a silverware drawer in my kitchen, but refer to the eating utensils as cutlery.

I recall entering a grocery store while on vacation in Myrtle Beach, and the woman in front of me turned around and--right in my face--addressed her daughter who must have been behind me. In her slow, southern drawl, she said "Charlotte...Get me a buggy." It caught me off guard. I almost laughed in her face. I primarily think of a buggy as something pulled by a horse, and as a baby stroller as a distant second...but never a shopping cart.
Click to expand...

We call them buggy's or carts. Mostly buggy, I'll tell Jake, wait a minute let me get a buggy.
 
My aunts VW Beetle Bug had a little cubby at the far back that we called a "rumble seat". Us kids used to flock to the back to sit in! Three at a time squished in!

Even though waterproof crib sheets were vinyl, I still always called them rubber sheets
Waterproof baby pants for over old-fashioned cloth diapers were always rubber pants, even though they weren't made out of rubber
Hubby refers to having a bath as taking a swim!
Suppertime instead of mealtime, dinnertime, etc
Cigarettes, but do sometimes refer to them as ciggies!
Coffee is coffee, though if and when I'm out in a restaurant with others I tend to refer to coffee as java or another cuppa
Grocery shopping at the supermarket
Pants for everything long, except when I have dress pants on which are slacks
Granny panties or underpants!
When I was toilet training my kids I referred to their thick padded training pants as soakers or potty pants
My youngest called diapers - bappers!
 
Yvonne Smith said:
Growing up in north Idaho, we called the couch a daveno, or sometimes a Davenport or couch. I think that a shopping cart is called that almost everywhere except here in the South, where they are called a buggy.
A soda drink was called “pop”, and I learned when I moved here that no one had any idea what I was asking for when I used that word.
My shoes were tennis shoes, or “tenny runners “, and I only recently heard them called trainers.
I think we called the living room by that name, although I am familiar with calling it the front room. Ours was off to the side when you came inside the door, so the dining room was our front room.

My dad called an old car a “jitney”, and a small car was a puddle jumper.
Click to expand...
My Pennsylvania relatives called it "pop." It is a meaningless word. You may as well say "liquid" and expect people to know what you want...in my humble opinion.

So what does it mean? Do you mean any cola product (Coke, Pepsi, RC)?
 
I grew up with "pop" too, and he was not my father. My father was "dad." When I moved to California, no one seemed to know what I was talking about when I referred to "pop," but I never really found another term I could use consistently. Usually, I just refer to it by the specific brand and flavor of "pop" that I want. I have sometimes used "soft drink," but I feel kind of silly calling it that. I am also aware that some people refer to it as "coke," regardless of whether they are looking for Coca-Cola, Root Beer, or some other flavor or brand. I am guessing, but I think it's called "pop" because of the sound that sealed carbonated beverages make when you open them.

My father was "dad" and my mother was "mom," unless I was being sarcastic, and then I might have said, "Yes, father" or "If you say so, mother," which is not to say that I was ever sarcastic.
 
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John Brunner said:
My Pennsylvania relatives called it "pop." It is a meaningless word. You may as well say "liquid" and expect people to know what you want...in my humble opinion.

So what does it mean? Do you mean any cola product (Coke, Pepsi, RC)?
Click to expand...
Yep, same here... "pop"!

Speaking of which, when I was growing up, my early childhood years, pop was a rarity in our house, we were lucky to see a few bottles of pop at Christmas time, however, throughout the remainder of the year pop was all but non-existent in our home.
 
Because we had the store, we had pop there all of the time, and like candy, it was nothing special. When we went out to eat, I always ordered water to drink because my mom said I could have all of the milk or pop that I wanted at home and it was much cheaper. So , going out to eat has usually meant to me that we order something that we would not have at home, and we drink water with the meal.

After Grandpa Bailey passed away and we closed the store, we seldom had pop at home, and if we traveled to Spokane and stopped at a hamburger stand on the way home, we always had ice cold fountain pop with the hamburgers, but otherwise, I mainly drank water, and occasionally Koolaid.
 
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