Interesting different regional & national English

...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.

Sweet milk and buttermilk. Buttermilk is required for cornbread both in the batter and later to crumble your cornbread into, otherwise known as cornbread and clabber or a country milkshake. Yes, light bread is that sliced stuff in the baggie.

Tea is always served cold over ice and has sugar, lots of it. In modern times we have to specify sweet tea because of all the weirdos out there.

Pi R round
Cornbread R square

One of my granddad's sayings and his cornbread pan was a square skillet.

I've actually seen a map that reportedly shows where the "sweet tea" line is, by county. Warrior, I drink ice tea almost every night and I do sweeten it but I'm sure you would find it horrid. Tastes sweet to me but its pretty dark. I tell the Chinese guys at work that I drink powdered instant "tea" and they just shake, cringe, and walk away...

Skillets are made of cast iron. Pans aren't. You use them on a stove which has eyes.

Sunperch and grinners (I call them grinnel) are types of fish. A grinner is a possum also.

Just at night? A gallon a day here. I drink two beverages most days, strong black coffee from wake up til lunch then sweet until lights out.
And sweet tea is prepared as follows boil one quart water place one Red Diamond (Donovan Coffee Company, Birmingham, AL) family size tea bag in water and let steep for twenty minutes. In a gallon size pitcher pour two cups sugar then pour in steeped tea and stir. Top off with cold water and pop in the fridge the cool.
Been drinking red diamond for fifty years this year.

Blinky is milk that about ready to turn the corner.

Blue John is the skim that left after running thru the cream separator.

Them ranchers must get tired chasing them doggies all day on horseback.

Grinner is a possum, grinnel is a fish.

A slab caught while fishing is a crop-e, spelled crappie and pronounced crappy elsewhere. As well as white perch, speckled bass and sacalait.

Waitresses sometimes give me a strange look when I ask for dippy eggs at out-of-state diners. I don't even bother asking for scrapple.

Only in certain parts of the south do folks know that a gopher is a turtle and a gopher is a sallymander. We also have saddlebacks and velvettails and both can kill you.

bubbler is a water fountain, never heard the term water fountain till I was in my 20's or so.

soda is any carbonated drink, there is no "pop" around here. Orange soda, grape soda, coke, pepsi, Mt. Dew, and Dr. Pepper are all soda.

Lots of places serve "steak sandwiches", basically a cut of beef that is sometimes ground or pounded thin and fried. Basically a slightly better hamburger.
I have to always ask if its an actual cut of meat or is it ground or pulverized. I like a good steak sandwich (usually tenderloin) but not what most around here call a "steak sandwich".

Snowmobiles or sleds, snow machines are what they use to make snow at the ski hills.

Oscar Mayer makes Hot Dogs, Weiners are a more of a sausage than a hot dog. Larger like a Italian sausage or Brat, coarse ground and with a tough outer casing that snaps as you bite thru them. Think of a mini ring baloney and your close.

River Stripe is a White Bass.

Crick or Creek?

Called a hamburger a hamburg. West Virginia relatives did that to me, I thought they forgot what they were saying. Sleds are what kids ride down the hill in.

Hamburg or ground beef?
Sub, grinder, or hoagie?

Don't forget a poor boy. Must be on a baguette.

Creek

Crik if it has an old car in it, creek if it is pure and pristine.

In Alabama a river must be able to float commercial traffic (flat boat min.), creeks can support boat traffic, branches feed creeks and can originate from springs (water flowing from the ground that may or may not be seasonal) or seeps (wet spots on the ground). There's also bogues which resemble bayous. We don't have marshes in freshwater but there are a lot of swamps.
A bay can be found inland away from the coast if it's wet and boggy.

Doughty; adjective (pronounced dOtee) is a tree you want to cull because its rotten or hollow (not to be confused with the hollers of north Alabama).

A wash is a gully.

Interesting thread. Living in France I can't help but think of the quantity of French words that are used in everyday English after some modification. Your "frap" milk shake probably came from the French word "frapper" the verb to beat something. Another one I like is "looney" when talking about someone who might be a bit goofy. Here you would say a person like that is "lunee", or like the moon and can be in a different state of mind on any day. Trap is also from the French word "trapper" meaning to catch something. My French wife used to crack me up when she's ask me how many ducks I caught.


Common names for panfish in the south always had me mystified....

Pete

^^^^^^^^^^
"My French wife used to crack me up when she's ask me how many ducks I caught".
That is the most common term I hear used by Alaska natives; "did you catch your moose", "did you catch a caribou", etc..

While english is a germanic language that is only really true of old english as spoken by the saxons, angles and jutes who migrated to the southern portion of the largest of the British Isles from germanic speaking areas of northern europe. Later that area would be called England after the angles. The remainder of the Isles continued speaking the original brythonic languages we call gaelioic today, btw brittony in France also spoke a brythonic language.
Modern english is somewhat of a forced marriage of germanic origin and structure and Norman french thanks to William the Conqueror.

I grew up using the term “boughten: meaning store bought food. As in “those cookies are boughten”.

Once had a fellow referring to “Jaggers”. I kept thinking huh? Finally asked. He was talking about what I call briars.

Once worked in a factory of a worldwide company. Part of my jobs was shrink wrapping and palletizing product. A manager one day was questioning us about “shrinkage” on the partial pallets of products left over the weekend. Several of us are trying to figure out what was wrong with the shrinkwrapped product. Turns out some product had been stolen. Thus “shrinkage”.

when i was in college, i had a professor that asked everyone to read a little paragraph outloud and he would take a guess at where they were from based on how they pronounced the words and their accents. and hed always nail it. i read that paragraph and he said, so english isnt your first language, your from the lower brule reservation, and youve got a close family member thats primarily a german speaker, and another from Tennessee. and he was dead on.

Borrowed from the pages of Pat McManus.

Shibboleth , Hebrew meaning "flood, creek , ear of grain

Stove "with eyes". dippy eggs, blinky & Blue John, doughty, jaggers, and shrinkage (for theft or missing) are all new ones for me.

I had heard of "water bubbler" before because I guy I work with is from Wisconsin. I wonder how far that radiates outside of WI?

White bass, creek (at least this side of the "River" in SD), hamburger over ground beef (but both are used), and subs here

Pete- Warrior is right that there is a lot of French-based words in modern English but there are also a lot of Latin and Greek-based words as well. French is a "romantic" language that is based on Latin so maybe the Latin got brought along with that, although how did the Greek keep coming (or maybe they had gotten brought into the Latin). Greek and Latin were the languages of the early Christian Church so they probably survived in a lot of western European languages because they were taught to certain groups of people.

Does anyone know what "owly" is used for, such as "he sure was owly today." ?

And, I can't be from South Dakota, at least East River, and not ask what you all (if you have a term for it), call cubbed red meat (started off with lamb but more commonly done with beeef now) placed on a wooden skewer and cooked in an deep fat fryer? We call it "chislic" around here.

And, because JP hasn't answered, "canned Kilk" is like American Spam

http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-canned-meats-eaten-reviewed-because-god-lie21/

Time for me to go to work. Later

When I was a kid "doggies" ( pronounced with a long O sound, doeggy) was a calf whose mama died or wouldn't feed it. So anybody with enough to chase them all day would really be having bad trouble, which is not to be confused with double bad trouble which is even worse.

NonPCfed
My Grand mother who was German born on farm here in WI used the word Owly. As I knew and understood it she meant about the same as crabby, or grumpy, fowl mood. At least that is how I understood it. May have been referencing awake all nigh poor night sleep made ya that way? not sure? And of course she is long gone so no way to ask her.

Mac

Up nort'd we sell stuff, down south they sale stuff.

Toque - knit wool cap
Runners - athletic shoes
Hydro - electric utility (in Ontario, we buy electricity from "Hydro One")
Pickeral or Pickerel are Walleye here

Michiganders who say "ruff" instead of "roof" or "graj" instead of "garage"

Timmies - Tim Hortons Coffee Shop

Double Double - coffee with 2 cream and 2 sugars

I've seen the word "sale" instead of sell used on this forum.
I think it's just that guys using that word in that context simply don't know how to spell "sell", and are just spelling it phonetically (like how they pronounce it). So it comes out as "sale" even though they really mean "sell".

its not a buggy - its a cart, thats what you put your groceries in

there are parts of VA where you "carry" someone when they need to go somewhere.

my wife calls it a bubbler, she is from Central Ohio.
Her mom, calls them hamburgs - her grandmother was Bulgarian, if that matters at all.

It's all coke - any fizzy drink is coke, regardless of brand

fixin to, or fittin to - means were are getting ready to do somethign - "I'm fittin to put his spoon across your backside!"

skosh - means a little bit

poke= a sack

my wife does not like that we "cut" our lights on

my wife calls the remote control a clicker

And it's pronounced "worsh"

Mike

Around our country colloquialisms vary a lot. Then you have accents. When call up and order something out in the mid West or West I know folks often have a hard time understanding me. Not sure how I got it but I have a severe "Down East" accent, which often causes some issues when talking to someone from out of state.

Drives me nuts and it's usually a younger woman when they say the word "Food" and sounds like "Feud"


Mac

Only in parts of the south. There's at least three different accents in just Alabama. And that's just among the white folks.

My original accent did not have a hard R.

There is a similar product in the UK referred to as "Potted Dik"

The R is the most notable.

Sir

Suh- south Alabama (listen to Jeff Sessions)
Sirr- north Alabama particularly the mountains
Siruh- west Alabama and flatwoods Mississippi (where they drink Aruh Cee cola, listen to Jerry Clower)

"skosh - means a little bit" any chance that came form the Japanese language. And Foxpaw's "Shibboleth , Hebrew meaning "flood, creek , ear of grain". I drive a Shibboleth Silverado, so there.....jk

Danny is right. We called light weight steers doggey’s with a long O.
A cow close to calving is called a springer. A cow that missed becoming pregnant is open. A heifer that didn’t breed is barren
Old thin cows are called shelly cows or canners.
A rope was called a lariat or just a rope on our place. Rarely used the term lasso

called a catch rope in my part of the world sac creek

pronounced ketch rope

I had to Google that one; "mountains" of Alabama.
I never knew there was that much topographical relief in Alabama. Not necessarily what I'd call mountains, but much more interesting countryside than I imagined.

I believe that skosh came from Japan to the US from service men during the Korean War. I have a book of Korean War cartoons that were in Stars and Stripes from that time. One of the cartoons has a toothpaste tube on the ground with a tank about to run over the edge of it with a GI directing the tank commander " Just a skoshi bit more" . Dad was stationed in Japan during the Korean war and he used the word skosh till the day he died.

Gimme a pinch of backer. Or a dip of snuff, never hear the word Tobacco

Corn Bread is Johnny Cake.

In Pennsylvania creeks are called runs

I didn't necessarily mean Alabama... But yes I get you.

Dad was stationed in GA when I was a tike... And I have friends and coworkers from a lot of states in the deep south... GA, AL, MS, and LA. So I am familiar with "carrying" someone or "cutting the lights on."

Weirdest accent I ever heard was a guy that was born and raised part of his life in North Carolina and the other part of his life in NOLA... You'd swear he was from Jersey but his long A's and R's were different.

Mike

Cottage Cheese is smearcase

Fet is fought

Ruf is a roof

Cutting a rug is dancing

Jarhead is a Marine

Head is a toilet

I cant believe no one has been picking on the guys from out east.. door yard pronounced doooyaad = driveway.. near as i could tell!

Had a colored guy workin for me he was from alabama had such a bad accent ya could hardly understand him... he was a good man but we were pouring concrete and i was hollerin at every one Pull it back.... push some in there... finally frank flipped out on me and cussed me out. i didnt understand a word he said exept at the end of rant was HONKEY WHITE BOY!!!.... We all bout died laughing !

How about, broken mouth, Hard grass, Bumpin,

In my part of the world a cow that failed to conceive didn't settle.

How could you get good luck out of "break a leg"?

Or give encouragement with "knock yourself out"?

Then she will be "bullin" in 21 days.

never heard of hard grass or bumpin. What do those terms mean?

called a cow without teeth a broke mouth cow though

They do in Iowa as well. On one of my visits there a fellow kept talking about working on a ruff. I thought he was saying his work was rough and was wondering when he was going to get around to telling me just what kind of work was so rough. After a while I just walked away thinking he was just a whiner about how rough work is.

I'm studying on it comes before I'm fixin to. Then you've done did it.

If a cow is 6 months or so along, you can bump the calf with you fist behind the ribs on the left side, Hard grass is, as I understand it a desirable prairie grass.

For the longest time , guys thought I was a jerk when they asked to " bum a chew". I'd tell them I didn't have any as I didn't chew tobacco . I dipped snuff.

Skid - a loser "That guy is such a skid"

Tilbilly - someone who lives in or near the town of Tilbury

Chryslers and Fords - how people around here say auto company names "I work for Chryslers" (there should be no s)

I dated a Cajun a long time ago from Red River parish. She had a typical southern country accent. Her mom came up here and it was time to meet her. She warned me that I wouldn't understand most of what he mom said. I figured it was her just trying to be more interesting.

Welp .....she was right. I only understood about half. And the half I did understand was in the wrong order.

haha - around here, people go to "The Walmarts"

Same here... the Walmart’s

Also my sister in-law does it all the time, says “wooder” when she means water.

My wife used to always ask me for a “pin”... took some questions and I found she wanted a pen...

Also, everything is a coke, no matter the brand.

Tea only comes one way, no need to say the word sweet....

They are originally from Chesapeake Virginia.

Don't know if this will help... But, was born and raised in Northern Ohio and married a gal from Looooosssinna (that's how they pronounce it down there) and I can't understand a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) thing she says.

People I know from Ohio say they are going to sweep or use the sweeper, we say vacuum.

Canadians... all snowmobiles are ski-doo’s no matter the brand.

“The bush” instead of woods or forest.

^^^^^^^
When I was a kid (late 60's - early 70's) all motor cycles, particularly dirt bikes, were "Honda's" no matter the brand.

Boot end
Davenport
Press

My Grandma spoke this language.

Interesting, never heard of hard grass. Grass cattle are light weight calves going to grass to gain weight before going on to a feedlot. I just typed another phrase “ going to grass” means getting turned out on pasture for a season. “Coming off grass” is the opposite or when you gather cattle off pasture late in the fall and move them to winter pasture. We gather cattle instead of rounding them up.
A cow that’s getting some age but still has all her teeth is, short and solid.

Or a "Chesterfield". Or is that just Canadian talk?

I've heard the Arkansas river pronounced R- Kansas river when the correct way to pronounce it is R-Can-Saw river.

Down by the crick, seems simple to me.

people here in Kansas call your state r Kansas too. we have a town named Arkansas City also . I bet you can guess how they say that too. It drives me bonkers. Nobody else anywhere in the country pronounces it that way. So I just call it Ark City. Its a common slang for it and everybody knows what Im taking about.

people in shakey get upset if you don't call rodeo drive roe day oe

Davenport is a couch or sofa
Press is a closet
Boot end is the trunk of a car

Chesterfield is a nice smoke!

do they still sell chesterfields? in my smoking days I thought they were awful.

What's a roundtoit? Will get round to it.

Did you smoke Chesterfields, or recline on one? A Chesterfield is a couch.

Chesterfield was Coach Bryant's preferred brand of cigarette.

I ran into a few people when I was in the AF, don't know where they were from, but to them all crackers are saltines, no mater what brand they are. I guess kinda like the pop-coke-soda thing.
Dennis

Sort of like all facial tissues are Kleenex

Old timers around here always called crappies "calico bass"

I guided some guys from the UP of Michigan once that didn’t know what biscuits and gravy was. They just sat there and looked at it! Crazy

Employee of 40 years from Texas still tells me to “cut the lights on or cut the lights off”

Macthediver- Your grandmother was correct!! I used that term a lot when I was younger. A guy at work, who grew up in Vermont, was surprised when his daughter, who went to jumior and senior high school around here, used the term "owly". This guy had never heard that term so was asking a bunch of people at work. A lot of them came here from someplace else and didn't know what it meant. The usage seemed pretty regional for upper Midwest.

Sac Creek and Danny C., a lot of those cattle terms I hadn't heard before but some of them are pretty commonly used when I occasionally listen to the local cattle markets such as "open" and "grass cattle".

slydog-x: I like your "double, double". Might try that next time I'm at a place that serves coffee drinks and see wait kind of reaction I get. I also like your "skid" for a ner'-do-well. I'd like to know more of the story with that one.

Fisheman- "smearcase". That sounds just yuk! I'll stay with cottage cheese. My home town used to have a best cottage chesse called "Nordica" even though it was started by 2 hard core German brothers. They sold their recipe to a bigger operation and I think it got deep-sixed. Haven't tasted as good of cottage cheese since then.

CaptGus- I only got through about 12 minutes of your video but I like "si-gogglin" and "boomer". I sort of wish we had "boomers" around here...

Maybe not relevent to this thread?

Buy how can a “fat chance” and a “slim chance”, mean the same thing?

I just thought that was a.mistyped word in the trap shed when you had stuff to sell.😀

Because "fat chance" is sarcasm.

A guy i know has a bug control business... a old german lady called him with a bad accent She had bucks in the crotch...

I bet he was smiling to himself when he heard her say it

Out west a ways they say "squares" and "quarters", Here we say "forties" and "sections".

Some places have Parishes, Here we have Townships.

My dad grew up on the Columbia river during the teens and twenties and chinook jargon was still being used a little by both whites and Indians. Words he sometimes used included siwash (sigh-wash) is bastardization of the french "sauvage". And "muck-a-muck" for food. I still call the dog to eat by yelling muck-a-muck!

And I will never forget my getting balled out by my Tennessean room-mate when I he was talking about hush puppies at a fish fry. What do shoes and fish fries have in common?

Spanish has a lot of these regional differences as well. Actually quite bit more than we have in english, which is natural since the Spanish language is spoken over such a much larger area. "Guagua" is a bus in Puerto Rico, a duck in Colombia, and a baby in Ecuador.

Many many more examples especially with names for animals, fruits and vegetables. Which makes sense since Nahuatl (Aztec), and Quichua (Inca) have large linguistic contributions in regional spoken Spanish.

It

Growing up we had a few Cubans in the community (post Castro refugees) and they would quickly inform you that they and Mexicans spoke differently.

I remember seeing a news story back maybe pushing 20 years ago that showed 4 different Budwesier tv comercials pitching to different Hispanic groups in the U.S. The was the western Mexican, eastern Mexican, Cuban and PR . Each ad had different flair and usually music. The bottom line, however, was that brand beer.

I now see that Walmart has posters as you walk into the store about applying for jobs in Spanish. I wonder how much Spanish is taught to the Chinese or do they still figure that knowing English is all they'll need to eventually dominate the U.S. on the world stage...?