...language terms


One of the themes of geography as a study is why are things different or similar in other areas (comparing and contrasting things). I get paid to know what covers the land surface in the U.S., how does that differ and change across various geographic scales, and how is the land used? Other geographers study many different things but some study how phases and terms differ from place to place but generally mean the same thing. I'm sure there are other occasions that I can't remember right now, but Jurassic Park has left me scratching my head a couple of times in the last year or so. The first was when he was talking about his "hydro" bill and I was wondering why his water costs had anything to do with the subject he was talking about until someone else (a northern Minnesotan) informed me the JP meant his "electric" bill (ok, that then made sense knowing how much of Canada generates its electricity from turbines in dams). Last night, JP said poor people go to cheap stores and buy "cans of kilk". I still don't know what "kilk" is but I've determined that JP thinks its cheap, junk food and won't eat it.

So, I'm curious of any examples tman people can give about times they went somewhere else and didn't know what someone else was talking about even though they were speaking the same language. Or terms and phases that you commonly use that you know people in other regions don't use in the same way or across country boundaries, such as Canada and the U.S.

I'll give an example. My mom grew up in the 1930s/40s in a small town in Mass and when we were out there visiting when I was in junior high, we had gone to a local ice cream place and they were selling "fraps" (I may have misspelled it). I had no idea what a "frap" was but found out it was what we out here call a "malt" or a "shake".

Anyway, its a cold, nasty night here and I'm procrastinating finishing cleaning up my stuff in the basement so this thread might be fun to find out new terms or terms that drive people crazy when used. Fire away...

Calling pop a soda. To me a pop is a pepsi or coke. A soda was ice cream,flavoring charged water,whipped cream and a cherry on the top.
Tom

One that has always baffled me.........and it does seem to be regional thing....generally the upper mid-west............is the confused usage of WHERE and WERE.

How can those two words be misused ? They don't even sound alike.



Another regionalism that confused me was in Alabama, when the neighbor lady offered to "carry" me to church.

dem kiyutes I see all da time by da cheap fence. Was what I was told by a N.Dakota farmer. I was looking for a fence made of scrapped pallets or something. Finally figured out the translation was "I see those coyotes down by the sheep fence pretty regular.

NonPCfed, do you have tiger meat down there? Seems nobody from out of this area knows what it is but I'm sure they have it many places just called something different. Also see some use are in place of our. Seems to be a southern thing?

Spelling the difference of their, there, and they're ......

The deep south has its own dialect .....not heard in more modern areas of a given state.

"I study to " do a thing.....means I am deciding to do something....all the southerners use the term carry , in driving someone to town !

NonPC, that doesn't get you off the hook either. Study on getting back to work !

Most of my cousins grew up in small towns or on farms but I never knew what "tiger meat" (raw ground beef heavily seasoned) was until I hung around some guys from parts of West River. Now, my relatives were only a couple of generations rmoved from Germans coming from Europe so for them not eating "tiger meat" may have been more of a cultural thing or maybe its more of a ranching thing instead of more farmer.

white17 and danny- I think your examples come more from the legacy of Germans, Norwegians, Czech- Americans only being a generation or so removed from speaking the native tongue as the main language. My dad was a 2nd generation American born in 1923 on the homestead farm but spoke mostly German at home until most of his brothers and sisters had gone to country grade school.

Y'all got a bit of chaw?

Back in the late 70's when I was buying fur in the Midwest a lot of guys that I went out to lunch with raved about how good "tenderloin" was. I figured it was tenderloin steak; boy was I wrong. It was a flat piece of breaded, fried, flavourless pork meat. What a disappointment that was when I ordered it. This was either in northern Illinois or Iowa.

We're back to work, although today was a blizzard day and my rurally placed center was closed because of white-out driving conditions so had to work via the Web. Yes, I would like to have a FY19 budget (we're 4+ months into it) finalized. CRs just drag undecided things along. Maybe next week...

hudsonfur- "chaw" is called "chew" here



Pork culture stuff. Probably Iowa-centered but spreading out from there. SD was always on the pork periphery and whereas the overall amount of hogs produced in this state might not have changed much, the number of farms raising pork has drastically diminished. Beef is, and always has been, the main SD livestock critter.

Plainly she meant to carry you in her car, bless your heart.

I found that out eventually.But it was awkward for a minute or so !

A buggy is what you put your groceries in at the store.

A coke, or even older dope, is a fizzy carbonated soft drink that comes in many varieties and flavors one of which is "co-cola" produced by the Coca-Cola company.

You eat dinner at noon and supper in the evening.

Sweet milk is milk.

There's light bread and cornbread.

For some reason yankees keep asking me to repeat light. Odd.

That's a good one!!



How else is "milk" used in the South?


"light bread" must be white flour wheat bread...? I think most U.S. corn growers would like all people to eat more cornbread. Corn is easier to convert to "meal" than wheat is to make white flour.