The names we give things...

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I still call them what I called them in high school, gym shoes. Sometimes tennis shoes. Once in a while, if given an odd look, I call them sneakers. Never heard anyone call them runners.
 
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Lil

Well-Known Member
- Do you call it a couch, sofa, settee, chesterfield, or Davenport?

Couch or sofa

- Is it dinner or supper in your home?

Dinner

- Is it a refrigerator or fridge?

- Is it a deepfreeze or a freezer?

either

- Do you wear pants, slacks, or trousers?

pants or slacks

- Do you wear underwear, underpants, undies, or panties?

all of the above

- Baby has a soother, pacifier, or binky?

binky

- Is it a telephone or phone?

usually phone

- Is it a washing machine or washer?

Washer

- When you smoke do you have a cigarette, a smoke, or a butt?

cigarette/smoke

- Are you a pop or soda drinker?

Soda

- Did you toilet-train or potty-train your children?

potty

- In the winter do you wear long-johns or long-underwear?

long-johns or thermals

- Toilet learning toddlers wear training pants or soakers?

pull ups? LOL

- When drying dishes, do you use a tea-towel or dishtowel?

dishtowel

- When your children were bad, did you give them a spanking, a whoopin', a paddling, a tanning, or a lickin?

spanking

- Is it a silverware drawer or cutlery drawer in your kitchen?

silverware

- Do you wear sneakers or runners?

Neither - tennis shoes or tennies
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
The generic term for those shoes is tennies. If you own more than one pair, they are then defined by their brand name, as in, " Hey Miss KT, grab my Nikes for me please."
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
It might be easier to say what I don't use. I think it may be as much regional as old-fashioned. Mom was from the Northwest, Dad from the South and we lived in Missouri, so we kind of got a ton of different words.

- Do you call it a couch, sofa, settee, chesterfield, or Davenport?
Couch or Sofa

- Is it dinner or supper in your home?
Either

- Is it a refrigerator or fridge?
Either

- Is it a deepfreeze or a freezer?
Usually freezer, but could be either

- Do you wear pants, slacks, or trousers?
All of the above

- Do you wear underwear, underpants, undies, or panties?
Yes, LOL

- Baby has a soother, pacifier, or binky?
Not a soother. :)

- Is it a telephone or phone?
Both

- Is it a washing machine or washer?
Also both.

- When you smoke do you have a cigarette, a smoke, or a butt?
Not a butt.

- Are you a pop or soda drinker?
Usually soda.

- Did you toilet-train or potty-train your children?
Potty-train

- In the winter do you wear long-johns or long-underwear?
I don't wear either, but I call them both.

- Toilet learning toddlers wear training pants or soakers?
Training pants.

- What are the pants that mothers use over cloth diapers... rubber pants, plastic pants, waterproof pants, baby pants, vinyl pants, or diaper pants?
I guess rubber.

- When drying dishes, do you use a tea-towel or dishtowel?
Either.

- When changing a cloth diaper, do you use safety pins or diaper pins?
Again, either.

- Where do the wet and dirty diapers go, into the diaper pail or into the diaper bucket?
Pail.

- When your children were bad, did you give them a spanking, a whoopin', a paddling, a tanning, or a lickin?
Spanking or paddling.

- Is it a silverware drawer or cutlery drawer in your kitchen?
Silverware - cutlery is reserved for knives.

- Do you wear sneakers or runners?
Neither. I wear tennis shoes.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Do you call it a couch, sofa, settee, chesterfield, or Davenport?

Couch or sofa

- Is it dinner or supper in your home?

Dinner

- Is it a refrigerator or fridge?
Fridge

- Is it a deepfreeze or a freezer?
Fridge

- Do you wear pants, slacks, or trousers?

Pants for everyday. Slacks for dressier occasions, and trousers with suits or blazers.

- Do you wear underwear, underpants, undies, or panties?
underwear or skivvies (blame it on my husband)

- Baby has a soother, pacifier, or binky?

pacifier

- Is it a telephone or phone?

either


- Is it a washing machine or washer?

Washer

- When you smoke do you have a cigarette, a smoke, or a butt?

cigarette/smoke

- Are you a pop or soda drinker?

Born and raised a pop drinker in Chicago. After many years in WI, I now drink soda.

- Did you toilet-train or potty-train your children?

toilet trained. My father occasionally referred to it as "housebreaking"

- In the winter do you wear long-johns or long-underwear?

Long underwear, longies, silks or woolies.

- Toilet learning toddlers wear training pants or soakers?

training pants.

- When drying dishes, do you use a tea-towel or dishtowel?

dishtowel

- When your children were bad, did you give them a spanking, a whoopin', a paddling, a tanning, or a lickin?

None when I was growing up, but my mother referred to it as a "smack" or "smacking". In Yiddish, a "klopf".

- Is it a silverware drawer or cutlery drawer in your kitchen?

silverware

- Do you wear sneakers or runners?
Gym shoes. Used to call them all tennies.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Dinner and couch or sofa for those two questions. Some of the questions don't apply. We never used cloth diapers or pins.

Oh, dish towels are simply towels. Sometimes we call them paper towels because we often use them instead...lol. we use both to wipe things up...the dishes dry in the dishwasher dry cycle. We didn't spank but if others do we call it spanking unless it's too hard or across the face, then we call it abuse.

I never heard the word soakers for a pacifier but they are pacifiers or binkies.

Silverware I usually oddly call knives and forks. No idea why. I do use spoons!

Long johns are long johns. Long johns are also yummy donut like treats but they are long without holes.

When other people smoke, which doesn't happen often around me, I don't call it anything. I walk away. Hubby, who used to smoke, calls them cancer sticks. He knows many who died from smoking, partly why he quit. Seven years now. He is less able to handle smoke around him now than me!

I call my phone my cell. We don't have landlines.

That's all I can think of.
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
It might be easier to say what I don't use. I think it may be as much regional as old-fashioned. Mom was from the Northwest, Dad from the South and we lived in Missouri, so we kind of got a ton of different words.

- Do you call it a couch, sofa, settee, chesterfield, or Davenport?
Couch or Sofa

- Is it dinner or supper in your home?
Either

- Is it a refrigerator or fridge?
Either

- Is it a deepfreeze or a freezer?
Usually freezer, but could be either

- Do you wear pants, slacks, or trousers?
All of the above

- Do you wear underwear, underpants, undies, or panties?
Yes, LOL

- Baby has a soother, pacifier, or binky?
Not a soother. :)

- Is it a telephone or phone?
Both

- Is it a washing machine or washer?
Also both.

- When you smoke do you have a cigarette, a smoke, or a butt?
Not a butt.

- Are you a pop or soda drinker?
Usually soda.

- Did you toilet-train or potty-train your children?
Potty-train

- In the winter do you wear long-johns or long-underwear?
I don't wear either, but I call them both.

- Toilet learning toddlers wear training pants or soakers?
Training pants.

- What are the pants that mothers use over cloth diapers... rubber pants, plastic pants, waterproof pants, baby pants, vinyl pants, or diaper pants?
I guess rubber.

- When drying dishes, do you use a tea-towel or dishtowel?
Either.

- When changing a cloth diaper, do you use safety pins or diaper pins?
Again, either.

- Where do the wet and dirty diapers go, into the diaper pail or into the diaper bucket?
Pail.

- When your children were bad, did you give them a spanking, a whoopin', a paddling, a tanning, or a lickin?
Spanking or paddling.

- Is it a silverware drawer or cutlery drawer in your kitchen?
Silverware - cutlery is reserved for knives.

- Do you wear sneakers or runners?
Neither. I wear tennis shoes.
I never thought of it as being a regional thing until you mentioned it, Lil, but yes, it very well could be.

There was one mother from the States that I was conversing with many years ago, and rubber pants for babies were "rubber britches" in her home. I nearly fell over with laughter! :)
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Dinner and couch or sofa for those two questions. Some of the questions don't apply. We never used cloth diapers or pins.

Oh, dish towels are simply towels. Sometimes we call them paper towels because we often use them instead...lol. we use both to wipe things up...the dishes dry in the dishwasher dry cycle. We didn't spank but if others do we call it spanking unless it's too hard or across the face, then we call it abuse.

I never heard the word soakers for a pacifier but they are pacifiers or binkies.

Silverware I usually oddly call knives and forks. No idea why. I do use spoons!

Long johns are long johns. Long johns are also yummy donut like treats but they are long without holes.

When other people smoke, which doesn't happen often around me, I don't call it anything. I walk away. Hubby, who used to smoke, calls them cancer sticks. He knows many who died from smoking, partly why he quit. Seven years now. He is less able to handle smoke around him now than me!

I call my phone my cell. We don't have landlines.

That's all I can think of.
My mom used to call baby training pants, "soakers", and it just stuck with me, and diapers in our house when my siblings were babies were "flannelettes", because they were made out of cotton-flannelette.

Sure, we still referred to diapers as diapers, but mom used the term "flannelettes" a lot.

When I started babysitting, there was a mother I sat for that called her kids rubber pants, "waterproofs", and that one sort of stuck with me on and off (as in memory), though I never used it.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
There was one mother from the States that I was conversing with many years ago, and rubber pants for babies were "rubber britches" in her home.

Well that makes sense since britches is just a word for pants. So rubber britches and rubber pants are just interchangeable.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
I don’t think many people nowadays use the word “britches” anymore I could be wrong, I just haven’t heard it since I was a kid and my grandfather would tell his son (my uncle, six months older than me) “I’m gonna get your britches” meaning a threat of a spanking, which rarely happened.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Cat fanciers sometimes use the term "britches" to refer to the long hair on the hindlegs and rump of longhaired cats. The other term sometimes used is "pantaloons".

"Britches" is an Americanization of "breeches" which is an archaic term for trousers and is still used today for the specialized pants worn for riding horses English-style.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Do you call it a couch, sofa, settee, chesterfield, or Davenport?
Usually couch. Sometimes sofa.

- Is it dinner or supper in your home?
Dinner.

- Is it a refrigerator or fridge?
Both.

- Is it a deepfreeze or a freezer?
Freezer

- Do you wear pants, slacks, or trousers?
Pants

- Do you wear underwear, underpants, undies, or panties?
Underwear

- Baby has a soother, pacifier, or

Pacifier. A few new relatives say “paci”


- Is it a telephone or phone?
Both

- Is it a washing machine or washer?
Both

- When you smoke do you have a cigarette, a smoke, or a butt?
N/a

- Are you a pop or soda drinker?
Soda

- Did you toilet-train or potty-train your children?
Potty

- In the winter do you wear long-johns or long-underwear?
N/a
- Toilet learning toddlers wear training pants or soakers?
N/a

- What are the pants that mothers use over cloth diapers... rubber pants, plastic pants, waterproof pants, baby pants, vinyl pants, or diaper pants?
Diapers or pull ups

- When drying dishes, do you use a tea-towel or dishtowel?
Dish towel

- When changing a cloth diaper, do you use safety pins or diaper pins?
N/a

- Where do the wet and dirty diapers go, into the diaper pail or into the diaper bucket?
Pail

- When your children were bad, did you give them a spanking, a whoopin', a paddling, a tanning, or a
Mostly Time out
My Difficult Child wrote out sentences a LOT

- Is it a silverware drawer or
Silverware

And we called /call our high speed roadways....expressways
 
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