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11:26 am
March 22, 2010
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It seems like the names we use for things can be regional. So tell us where you grew up (or where your parents were from) and which word you used:
Did people sit on a davenport, divan, couch, sofa, chesterfield, or settee (or other___)?
Did women carry a purse, handbag, pocketbook, or bag (or other___)?
I grew up in California and people sat on a couch and women carried a purse.
12:32 pm
February 10, 2009
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Oh fun… my mother and I carry (carried) purses, and we sat on the couch, but my grandmothers both carried pocketbooks and sat on the davenport!
Also, we grew up drinking "Pop" but now after I've traveled all over I find myself saying "Soda" more often than not. When I catch myself saying pop, it makes me smile though.
12:39 pm
June 2, 2010
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We had a couch at our house and my mother carried a pocketbook. Add a little of our PA Dutchyness to the mix. When we tidy up our houses it's called redding up. We had toots, paperbags to take our lunch to school. We outened lights, turned them off. We would make something ready, prepare it for use. If something is all, there isn't anymore left. The list could go on forever.
4:21 pm
March 7, 2011
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I grew up in NW Iowa. We also said couch and purse. We also had a "cubby hole" in the car which I later learned is also called a "glove box" or "glove compartment". We ate breakfast, lunch and "supper" too.
5:19 pm
May 18, 2010
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We had a couch and carried a purse. My parents grew up in Illinois and youse was a term for you. And still is with some of our relatives. Mom and Dad used zinc for sink also. That used to get on my nerves. LOL Also sody for soda or pop.
6:37 pm
November 22, 2009
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My mom always carried a "pocketbook", and we sat on the davenport, but over the years they became a purse and sofa. To this day whenever I am digging in the cedar chest and come across some of my mom's things, I always say, this is mom's "pocketbook". Old habits are hard to break.
7:30 pm
June 1, 2010
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sofa and purse at my house, davenport and pocketbook at my mother's sister's house! 4 years apart, bilingual English/Lithuanian upbringing, near south side chicago, go figure!
me: soda and soda pop, didn't know it was a regionalism 'till it needed to be exsponged from text book mss. (soft drink substituted but now out of favor for health/obesity reasons)
best ever: from The Firelands OH across into western PA: The car needs washed. Substitutes for the more common the car need to be washed/needs washing…needs cleaned for needs to be cleaned/needs cleaning. in fact this region seems to have an innate fear of gerunds and infinitives
7:52 pm
August 24, 2010
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We had a couch, carried purses, and ate dinner. My mom was a stickler for proper English, so we didn't grow up speaking much slang for anything. Growing up most of my life in the south (although FL isn't really considered a 'real' southern state….) every soft drink is a COKE, even if its not a coke but another flavor.
My husband, on the other hand, grew up in Tennessee….we go "over yonder", fish in a "crick", and are often "fixin' to" do something or another. He says "otter" instead of "ought to"…
8:00 pm
October 18, 2010
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We sat on the couch and Mom carried a pocketbook. However, my former husband sat on the chesterfield (he was Canadian).
We ate breakfast, dinner, and supper. Had a bottle of pop on rare occasions.
Grandpa used a doodlebug to rake up the hay scatterings. (An old truck made into a farm vehicle)
And when my sister hit me, it smarted for days!
It's fun remembering the old Maine expressions. Still use most of them today.
10:05 pm
May 7, 2011
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We called a train that had just an engine, one car and a caboose a doodlebug.
We called it a couch, sofa or divan.
It was a purse, handbag or pocketbook (grandma's)
It was breakfast, lunch and supper.
11:54 pm
February 22, 2010
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Terms we used growing up…
davenport and pocketbook
pop or sody pop
you'uns
warsh for wash, wush for wish, we always put a 't' on the end of once and twice
jigger for chigger
crick for creek
My dad called homemade yeast bread "light bread" and store bought bread "baker's bread"
At home it was breakfast, dinner, and supper but we had "lunch" at school.
we would rid up the dishes and tidy up the house
We always said laundrymat My husband's family said "wash house" (he was born and raised in Missouri)
I was born and raised in south eastern Ohio.
12:30 am
January 2, 2011
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We're in California. We sit on a couch, carry a purse, eat dinner, & drink soda.
My in-laws are in Wisconsin they drink pop, call us "youse guys", and eat supper.
8:43 am
February 22, 2010
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My cousin… who was transplanted to Arkansas…told me she had to carry her little boy to school everyday…I was schocked!
Untill I realized she meant she was giving him a ride to school in her car! She also totes her groceries home in a poke.
10:20 am
August 13, 2011
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Both my family and my husband's family have lived in Maine for generations. We say couch and purse at my house. When I was growing up though my mom and grandmother would say pocketbook and a wallet was called a purse. Also, a "couch" was in the den and the "good sofa" was in the living room. Which you only went into when company was over.
We have breakfast, lunch or dinnah, and suppah.
Brookdale…Have you used "chuck it"? As in "You can just chuck it over there, or in the trash". Chuck it, meaning to throw an object somewhere.
Also, our cars are parked in the yard not in a driveway. We do up the dishes, make up the bed and drink soda.
One thing I have been told is that you can't order an "italian" in another state. They are called grinders or subs.
1:04 pm
August 15, 2011
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My Mom is from extreme southwest Virginia (almost Kentucky or Tennessee) and she's always said "warsh cloth" or "Warshington". Even though she was born in SW Virginia, she was raised in Baltimore, MD. After that, her family moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL, where she met and married my father and where I was born. I've often wondered if the "war" sound in her prounciation is a resullt of southwest Virginia or Baltimore, MD?
1:13 pm
June 7, 2011
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kellyb said:
We had a couch at our house and my mother carried a pocketbook. Add a little of our PA Dutchyness to the mix. When we tidy up our houses it's called redding up. We had toots, paperbags to take our lunch to school. We outened lights, turned them off. We would make something ready, prepare it for use. If something is all, there isn't anymore left. The list could go on forever.
I hear yah. Combine PA Dutch with Coal Region and I could write for hours about regional vocabulary.
To answer the original question, purse and couch.
2:53 pm
November 9, 2010
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"Filled up" was when you started to cry. "She filled up when she heard the news about her mother." Down Street is for when you are going into town. " He went down street to get supplies." Never mind that "down street" was really a 10 mile long country road. When telling time it is quarter of 10, not quarter till 10 like some places. Couch or sofa. Purse or pocketbook, either would do. Eastern Upstate New York. We call it soda, but folks in Buffalo and Rochester area call it pop. Must be the mid-west influence out there.
7:06 pm
February 10, 2009
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@ CityGirlFarmGirl, the r sound in wash (warsh) is definitely a MD thing! I have an aunt by marriage from Baltimore and she pronounces them that way, I also had a friend from Boston MA and she said that a lot too, though she'd worked hard at getting such things out of her vocabulary, it did show up from time to time though. I'd say it's maybe (probably?) an eastern seaboard sort of thing?
7:24 pm
October 3, 2010
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CityGirlFarmGirl said:
My Mom is from extreme southwest Virginia (almost Kentucky or Tennessee) and she's always said "warsh cloth" or "Warshington". Even though she was born in SW Virginia, she was raised in Baltimore, MD. After that, her family moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL, where she met and married my father and where I was born. I've often wondered if the "war" sound in her prounciation is a resullt of southwest Virginia or Baltimore, MD?
CGFG,
My mom was born in South VA and moved to southern KY as a 1-year-old, and there's an "r" in wash and Washington, so it's from the south Virginia area. Also from that area of Virginia – courtesy of my grandmother – Your'n, His'n and Her'n. A form of possession, "Isn't that book Your'n?" My mom also puts an "n" in milk, pronouncing it "milnk".
We say couch and purse, but Daddy, who's from another part of southern KY, calls it a pocketbook. I say dinner, but he argues with me, saying the evening meal is supper and dinner is eaten during the day. When I asked him what lunch was, she replied that lunch is something like cold sandwiches and dinner is a hot, cooked middle-of-day meal.
I grew up saying pop, and as I've gotten older, it's morphed into "coke", even if they are pepsi products.
11:14 pm
February 3, 2010
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Like mommafox, as the years went by our davenport changed to a couch and our pocketbooks into purses. We went from icebox to 'fridge, spigot to faucet (on the sink), but it was years after my husband and I were married that my "broadshelf" changed into his "counter" (he's a city kid) and I still quite often go down to the cellar for something rather than the basement.
We are both from around the Buffalo area though and drink too much "pop".
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