Lollipop or Sucker?

Which word do you use to refer to the candy? Age and location / childhood location would be nice.

I say lollipop, age 38, lived in NJ for my first 26 years, more-or-less. I now live in California, and it seems that 95% of people say “sucker.”

EDIT : Old thread without poll, on the same topic.

Joe

I said lollipop, but I’m likely to say lolly too.

Grew up in Western NY.

Sucker, unless it’s some sort of special emphasis. Grew up in Oklahoma, primarily.

Lollipops are spherical. Suckers are disk-shaped.

Age 42, grew up in Phoenix.

I’ve always said both. The kind you can just keep in your mouth, like dumdum or tootsie roll pops, those are suckers. The big round disk are lollipops. I’m from Texas.

Suckers - grew up in SE TN, age 38.

(Now I’d call the little ones suckers and the great big ones lollipops, but I’m not even sure I knew the great big ones existed when I was a kid)

Agree with all who said : lolipops are disk shaped and usually multicolored. Suckers are sperical. You lick a lolipop, and you, fittingly, suck a sucker.

I guess I call them all lollipops… but suckers doesn’t sound weird to me at all.

almost 50 from Arkansas. Sucker is what I call any hard candy. I think of Jolly Ranchers as suckers without the stick.

Lollipop reminds me of Shirley Temple.

This.

I’m 44, so I’m going to conclude that it’s an age thing :slight_smile:

Close, except suckers don’t have to be spherical. Flat candies on a stick can also be suckers if they’re small enough to be eaten as suckers.

Suckers were the cheaper-tasting product that was sold in bulk and often found in free candy bowls. Lollipops were more of a premium product that were sold individually and more for special occasions like when I was at a fair.

25, grew up in Ontario.

Lollipop is disk shaped. Everything else is a sucker.

43, Northern California

Flat, disk shaped, and anywhere from sorta big to the size of a pizza? Lollipop. Small enough to get in your mouth and generally NOT a flat disk? Sucker.

Long term resident of the deep south.

I grew up in MA & NH. I’ve never heard anyone outside a TV show or movie say sucker instead of lollipop. Suckers are people!

Did anyone have a separate term for the suckers with gum inside? Or the ones that were made of a drier, powdery candy?

Thanks for the input. I thought “sucker” was an old-timey word only used in Bugs Bunny cartoons. I had, AFAIK, never heard it in the wild until I moved to California at about age 23. It also never occurred to me that shape makes a difference.

Joe

After reading this thread I am unsure…lollipop in the middle and suckers on the ends?

I’ve always liked sucker better. Lollipop seemed so childish, even when I was first learning to talk.

I call the gum ones Blow Pops, but that’s a registered trademark. I’m not aware of any generic knockoffs.

I always say lollipop, but it doesn’t bug me if someone says sucker.

28, born in Texas but moved around a lot as a kid.

Lollipop. Raised in New York.

A sucker is someone you say “so long!” to, just before the gods smite you for your hubris.