Odd Regional Phases and Expressions

[Blackhawk748]

Imean, lets be fair here, some things have odd names. I'd have no problem with "bubbler" if everyone called it that. But it's only a very specific regional area that does it, and that's weird.

Maybe everyone else is weird and we're the correct ones?

Its not just weird, its wrong! WRONG I SAY!

I will stand with the forces of the Heterodoxical Church of the Bubbler, and our allies the Congregation of the Drinking Fountain! We will never bow before Water Fountain oppression!

[2D8HP]

They don't bubble.

Also, one state doesn't get to call the shots on water fountain nomenclature.

In my plumbing parts catalogs, the metal spout part is called a "bubbler", and the whole assembly (including the basin) is a "drinking fountain". But plumbing nomenclature can be weird, I once had a Playgrounder ask some plumbing question and two terms the Forum filter wouldn't allow!

[Peelee]

In my plumbing parts catalogs, the metal spout part is called a "bubbler", and the whole assembly (including the basin) is a "drinking fountain". But plumbing nomenclature can be weird, I once had a Playgrounder ask some plumbing question and two terms the Forum filter wouldn't allow!

Was it due to the S****horpe problem?

[brian 333]

A few years ago a New Orleans Spice product attempted to advertise nationwide during American Football games. It flopped badly. I mean, like really bad.

The product is named, "Slap Ya Mama"

It's a real product, and it's actually a fairly decent Creole spice mix, but the name conjured images of domestic violence in folks who never went South of I-10.

There was an older fellow from my grandparent's generation who MCd various club and business get togethers, and he worked with caterers of banquets and seafood boils for oilfield companies from Houston to New Orleans. His name was Justin Wilson, and though he was not a Cajun, he adopted the accent, so we kind of adopted him.

In his later years he brought Cajun cooking to the small screen. In his banter he would often say, "Dat's so good it make ya wanna go home an slap ya mama." This wasn't an invitation to incite violence against women, it was, to him, a humorous way of saying it's better than your mother's recipe.

Justin Wilson is also the guy who popularized Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes. (Pronounced Bood-row and Tib-a-dough.) He didn't invent them. Heck, he didn't invent most of the stuff for which he was known, but he could tell a story while doing virtually anything else.

[anjxed]

Odd regional phrases...

How about a whole language used by the LGBT community in the Philippines


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swardspeak

[Peelee]

A few years ago a New Orleans Spice product attempted to advertise nationwide during American Football games. It flopped badly. I mean, like really bad.

The product is named, "Slap Ya Mama"

It's a real product, and it's actually a fairly decent Creole spice mix, but the name conjured images of domestic violence in folks who never went South of I-10.

There was an older fellow from my grandparent's generation who MCd various club and business get togethers, and he worked with caterers of banquets and seafood boils for oilfield companies from Houston to New Orleans. His name was Justin Wilson, and though he was not a Cajun, he adopted the accent, so we kind of adopted him.

In his later years he brought Cajun cooking to the small screen. In his banter he would often say, "Dat's so good it make ya wanna go home an slap ya mama." This wasn't an invitation to incite violence against women, it was, to him, a humorous way of saying it's better than your mother's recipe.

Ive had it. I like it. The history of the name is interesting, and makes sense.

It's still a stupid name. Though, to be fair, I think the same thing about the "Who Dat?" Saints marketing.

[Honest Tiefling]

They're about the only sort of supportive shoe you can find for women though, unless you want to spend $$$ for the fancy ones.

I'd take a look online. Several retailers have wider widths of styles not found in stores due to stocking and the like.

One problem I often run into is calling the bread crumb mixture you stuff into a turkey/chicken dressing or stuffing. Since I call it stuffing, I assume people (including my own mother) talking about it mean salad dressing, because THAT is dressing. We're not covering the bird in it, that doesn't even make sense!

[Blackhawk748]

I'd take a look online. Several retailers have wider widths of styles not found in stores due to stocking and the like.

One problem I often run into is calling the bread crumb mixture you stuff into a turkey/chicken dressing or stuffing. Since I call it stuffing, I assume people (including my own mother) talking about it mean salad dressing, because THAT is dressing. We're not covering the bird in it, that doesn't even make sense!

I concur, its always something i found odd.

[emduck]

I've never heard anyone say this without it sounding forced. To be fair, I also haven't been to the Carolinas.

It's best delivered by a sweet-looking woman of 60 or older.

[brian 333]

I'd take a look online. Several retailers have wider widths of styles not found in stores due to stocking and the like.

One problem I often run into is calling the bread crumb mixture you stuff into a turkey/chicken dressing or stuffing. Since I call it stuffing, I assume people (including my own mother) talking about it mean salad dressing, because THAT is dressing. We're not covering the bird in it, that doesn't even make sense!

Ever get dressed for dinner?

As a youngster I spent a bit of time on my grandfather's farms in the Tex-Ark-anna region of the US, and of course, we ate what we grew. Unfortunately, I was of the age where youngsters on the farm are considered free labor. One of my chores was to 'dress the chicken' for dinner. The exact details of this process are not necessary for this discussion, but it involves lots of feathers. By God, those things have a lot of feathers! Anyway, the carcass was considered 'dressed' when it was ready to cook. So, the last step in the process of dressing a bird is stuffing it.

Any animal carcass must be dressed for cooking. But only birds and rabbits seem to get stuffing.

I am not certain this is the origin of the useage, but my Mamaw stuffed her birds with dressing, and I can't count the times she asked me to dress a bird.

[WarKitty]

Ever get dressed for dinner?

As a youngster I spent a bit of time on my grandfather's farms in the Tex-Ark-anna region of the US, and of course, we ate what we grew. Unfortunately, I was of the age where youngsters on the farm are considered free labor. One of my chores was to 'dress the chicken' for dinner. The exact details of this process are not necessary for this discussion, but it involves lots of feathers. By God, those things have a lot of feathers! Anyway, the carcass was considered 'dressed' when it was ready to cook. So, the last step in the process of dressing a bird is stuffing it.

Any animal carcass must be dressed for cooking. But only birds and rabbits seem to get stuffing.

I am not certain this is the origin of the useage, but my Mamaw stuffed her birds with dressing, and I can't count the times she asked me to dress a bird.

Reminds me of the term "field-dressing" - removing the inedible bits of a game animal in order to transport it back.

[Bohandas]

found this relevant video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I8_-u9xAeo#t=05m44s

[Honest Tiefling]

It's still a stupid name. Though, to be fair, I think the same thing about the "Who Dat?" Saints marketing.

On an unrelated note, I thought this was an ad campaign for Saint's Row. I feel embarrassed now.

On a more related note, the term Frisco. I have never heard a native say it, they call it San Fran. I have no idea where the term comes from, but I usually assume ad executives who don't live in Norcal. What other annoying names do people have for your hometowns?

[2D8HP]

...On a more related note, the term Frisco. I have never heard a native say it, they call it San Fran. I have no idea where the term comes from, but I usually assume ad executives who don't live in Norcal. What other annoying names do people have for your hometowns?

.
While my brother was born in San Francisco, and went to school at S.F. State, and I work in (and for) The City and County of San Francisco, I don't hear "San Fran" much, I've heard "ess eff", "The City" (mostly from my parents when I was growing up), and "The City and County" (from my fellow employees), but I didn't grow up here. I do have a co-worker who grew up in the Hunters Point neighborhood who does occasionally call it "Frisco" or "Cisco", but his dad was from Mississippi, and more commonly he calls it "here in the city".

For my hometowns (one for my father and one for my mother) its been "Berserkely" and "B-town" (which I haven't heard since the 1980's) for Berkeley, and "Oak-town", "Broke-land", and "Croak-land" for Oakland, all of which I find annoying.

[DavidSh]

"Frisco" easily dates back to 1877 (see Dictionary of Americanisms from that year), and may date to the gold rush of 1849.

[Astral Avenger]

Although my favourite is the bunnyhug. Do you know what a bunnyhug might be? Guess! It is only called this in Saskatchewan, and some parts of rural Manitoba where the term has spilled over.

Give up?

Spoiler: A Bunnyhug is...

Show

A freaking hoodie.

Yeah. I don't get it either.

I've heard that one a handful of times in Northern Minnesota. To be fair, the rural northern part of the state is practically an honorary Canadian territory, but bunnyhug isn't strictly limited to Canada.

Dontcha know as a Minisnowtan I gotta mention that the food is hot dish (not casserole) and the game is duck-duck-grey duck.

[Peelee]

Ya know, I'd forgotten about it til now, but Harvard did a linguistic project that the New York Times eventually made into a little quiz that can fairly accurately (in my experience, at least) tell where in the US your dialect comes from. The multiple choice answers also give fun regional expressions that are... amazing, in their own way.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-quiz-map.html

[brian 333]

As a native New Orleanian I was surprised to learn my city was called The Big Easy. I was in my twenties, and the home in which I was raised was in walking distance, (with a ferry ride across the river,) of the French Quarter. I still have no idea how this phrase came into being.

But I think I know why it came into being. You see, in New Orleans it gets hot. Mobile and Houston get hot too, but New Orleans is a bowl in the center of a swamp. We complain of the dry air when humidity drops below 50%. In the summer the temperature and humidity go up all day until the humidity hits 100%, (rain.)

You sweat, but that only serves to make your clothing wet, and it cools you not at all. So, before AC was common, (I still recall seeing the Air Conditioned sign outside of stores and restaurants,) the city would take a break after lunch and resume work after it cooled down.

In one case I recall a group of workers the union sent from Ohio to work in a chemical plant. They were real go-getters, and no matter how we tried to warn them, they insisted they could outwork a bunch of lazy Southerners. (We Coonasses don't like to be called Southern, by the way.)

There were two heat stroke cases on the first day, as in pepole fell down and were carried away on stretchers. Heat stroke and fatigue continued to plague this crew, resulting in only four of the original twenty making it to the end of a three month shutdown. It's better now because safety training includes heat stress awareness, and hydration breaks are now mandatory. But the impression our Northern friends had of us as lazy and slow never included our ability to remain on our feet for 12 hours a day, seven days a week until the project was completed. So, I can see how outsiders might think of my city as The Big Easy, because before AC, the city shut down for the hottest part of the day.

[Peelee]

We complain of the dry air when humidity drops below 50%.

As you damn well should. The South is hot, but it's not an oven. Need that humidity to breathe.

[brian 333]

As you damn well should. The South is hot, but it's not an oven. Need that humidity to breathe.

Yeah, New Orleans is not a part of The South. It is an oven.

You walk outside even in the early morning and hit a wall of heat. You instantly sweat, but it can't dry off because the air is already saturated with water, so you sweat more. And both the temperature and humidity go up from there until it rains. Which can lead to cool nights if the rains come late in the day, but if the rain comes earlier, it results in a humid blanket that prevents the night air from cooling.

However, this isn't a climate issue.

Why are Louisiana natives called Coonasses?

That came from American servicemen in WW2 who saw their fellows from Louisiana hailed as long lost cousins. The French folks used a word meaning Cousin, but the soldiers heard Coonass. After WW2 the term was adopted by us to mean generally anyone from Louisiana. While Texans try to use the word as a slur, we generally laugh at the antics of goat ropers.

In an ordinary day in Louisiana one driving down the road will inevitably see one or more decals depicting the posterior of a raccoon on the rear window of someone's truck. Fully detailed, of course.

[Peelee]

Yeah, New Orleans is not a part of The South. It is an oven.

A.) New Orleans is part of The South. It is not part of the Deep South, yes, but it is part of the South. It's not the Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, East Coast, West Coast, New England, Great White North, America's Breadbasket, etc. etc. It's the South.

2.) It is not an oven. Ovens cook with a dry heat. The Southwest is an oven. New Mexico is an oven. New Orleans, with its high humidity, is far from an oven.

[brian 333]

Okay. It's a sauna.

[WarKitty]

Ya know, I'd forgotten about it til now, but Harvard did a linguistic project that the New York Times eventually made into a little quiz that can fairly accurately (in my experience, at least) tell where in the US your dialect comes from. The multiple choice answers also give fun regional expressions that are... amazing, in their own way.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-quiz-map.html

Yeah, that quiz needed multiple answers though - for example I'll use "you guys" and "y'all" both, depending on what mood I'm in.

[Fiery Diamond]

Yeah, that quiz needed multiple answers though - for example I'll use "you guys" and "y'all" both, depending on what mood I'm in.

Agreed. I also use tractor trailer, truck, and eighteen-wheeler interchangeably.

[The Fury]

"Frisco" easily dates back to 1877 (see Dictionary of Americanisms from that year), and may date to the gold rush of 1849.

Though to add an extra layer of confusion, there's a town in Texas that's called Frisco too. In this case it's not even a nickname, that's just the actual city name.

[Vinyadan]

Ever get dressed for dinner?

As a youngster I spent a bit of time on my grandfather's farms in the Tex-Ark-anna region of the US, and of course, we ate what we grew. Unfortunately, I was of the age where youngsters on the farm are considered free labor. One of my chores was to 'dress the chicken' for dinner. The exact details of this process are not necessary for this discussion, but it involves lots of feathers. By God, those things have a lot of feathers! Anyway, the carcass was considered 'dressed' when it was ready to cook. So, the last step in the process of dressing a bird is stuffing it.

Any animal carcass must be dressed for cooking. But only birds and rabbits seem to get stuffing.

I am not certain this is the origin of the useage, but my Mamaw stuffed her birds with dressing, and I can't count the times she asked me to dress a bird.

So to dress the chicken you need to undress it first?

[brian 333]

So to dress the chicken you need to undress it first?

Oh, you kinky bird!

(Am I blushing?)

[Peelee]

As a youngster I spent a bit of time on my grandfather's farms in the Tex-Ark-anna region of the US

I hear there's beer in Texarkana. And the boys are thirsty in Atlanta. Eeeast bound and doooooooown, loaded up and truckin'!

[thorgrim29]

Ya know, I'd forgotten about it til now, but Harvard did a linguistic project that the New York Times eventually made into a little quiz that can fairly accurately (in my experience, at least) tell where in the US your dialect comes from. The multiple choice answers also give fun regional expressions that are... amazing, in their own way.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-quiz-map.html

Interestingly, the quizz pegs my english as from the west coast (mainly washington and california) with a hotspot in New England. I understand California and New England because of movies, tv, and family near Boston, but Washington sort of confuses me.

[2D8HP]

Interestingly, the quizz pegs my english as from the west coast (mainly washington and california) with a hotspot in New England. I understand California and New England because of movies, tv, and family near Boston, but Washington sort of confuses me.

It told me Spokane, Washington, and while my wife is from Seattle, Washington (I spent some months with her there), I've lived most of my life in and near Oakland, California where I was born.

But... when I worked 35 miles away in Palo Alto, and 50 miles away in San Jose, I was questioned about my "strange accent", by my co-workers.

During my miserable time working there (hate "Silicon Valley" so much!) two brothers, both of whom grew up in San Jose, were my co-workers, one still lived in San Jose, the other moved 80+ miles to Stockton (and carpooled with the Foreman who also lived there). The brother who moved to Stockton had a "Southern" accent to my ears (not southern California, "The South", Texas, Georgia, etc.).

I'm guessing it was listening to the "Country music" stations that tend to be broadcast along with the "Tejano" and "Pop" stations in in-land California, that changed his accent.

I still can't figure out what they were hearing in my voice.