# Did your grandparents (parents?) have weird names for things? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 21, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948 "2013-01-21T21:46:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/41 "2013-01-22T06:39:53Z")
> [@Stana\_Claus](#): > > My understanding is that dinner refers to the larger or more formal dining experience of the day, regardless of what time it is eaten. Lunch is a quick or informal mid-day meal, and supper is a less formal evening meal. When one takes a date out to dinner, it’s typically in the evening. However, Sunday dinner (or Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner for that matter), is often served around noon or early afternoon. You might eat a light lunch because you plan to have a nice dinner after work that evening. > > That said, in rural areas, particularly in the farm belt, the big meal of the day was served around noon. The farmhands would work all morning out in the fields and then come in for a good meal (dinner) around mid-day. After getting fed and refortified, they would go back out and work until dark, when they would come back in for a light supper and then go to bed. > > Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that formally explained to me, or if I just made it up out of whole cloth from personal observations, but that is what seems to make the most sense to me. YMMV. For what it’s worth\*, that’s my understanding of the etymology as well. And it’s not limited to rural areas: I’ve heard it from people who were bawn ‘n’ bred in the the city. In any case, the main meal of the day, whenever it was eaten, was dinner; if one had dinner in the middle of the day, the later meal — frequently but not always soup — was supper. My contribution: “bug juice” for soy sauce. This may be specific (endemic?) to Montana; whatever its origin, I learned it from my father (on whom be peace), and I’ve made sure that the Ottlets know and love the term as well. \*Which is exactly what you’re paying for it. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/42 "2013-01-22T07:57:59Z")
In the house I grew up in we had a sort of chimney over the kitchen stove and there was a metal rain shield over the top of it. When it rained the metal made a delightful glorking sound which somehow we called “gutching and draking”. Oh and to my grandmother a car was a “machine”. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/43 "2013-01-22T08:00:04Z")
My grandmother always referred to underwear as “gutchies”. She also never said we were going shopping, it was always, “we’re going running around.” I also had an uncle who would call everyone Joe Mukaluk. I have no idea where he got that from. ---
**Author:** ![Sodalite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@Sodalite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sodalite)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/44 "2013-01-22T08:11:16Z")
To my grandparents the vacuum cleaner is “the sweeper”. My mom and aunt refer to going about your daily business as being “out in the street”. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/45 "2013-01-22T10:24:06Z")
Dad–drinking fountain= water fountain = “Bubbler”. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/46 "2013-01-22T10:33:06Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I call the remote the clicker. I always have and I always will, no matter how much my friends attempt to mock me about it. Are you old enough to remember when they DID click? (Better yet, are you old enough to remember when the clicking was how they worked? I’m the former, not the latter.) My mother still says clicker occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/47 "2013-01-22T11:19:33Z")
The side-board in our dining room was the chiffonier. The couch was the davino. Chester kept our clothing organized, too, you, know, Chester Drawers. My grandfather also referred to say sauce as bug juice. He was raised in Montana too. Lunch was tea. My grandmother was raised in Wales. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/48 "2013-01-22T11:55:26Z")
> [@Sodalite](#): > > To my grandparents the vacuum cleaner is “the sweeper”. My mother-in-law calls hers a sweeper, too. And she keeps her money in a billfold. And she calls corn on the cob “roastin’ ears” - I’ve never heard that from anyone else, even when I live in Indiana myself. I’m hoping those of you who think “icebox” is a weird name are aware that in the beginning, they were, in fact, boxes with ice to keep everything cold. The ice was delivered in big blocks by the iceman - at least that’s how it was done in the city where my grandparent grew up. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/49 "2013-01-22T13:10:57Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > In Northern England, dinner is still the word for lunch. Were they or their family from there? I suppose some of them could have been at some point- I think my mom’s parents (the ones I’m talking about) families had been here (America) since the late 18th or early 19th century. My grandparents themselves were from far SE Illinois. Name wise, as far as I can tell, they were generic English and Welsh (Miller & Blackwell were their last names). ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/50 "2013-01-22T13:36:06Z")
Interesting to see the variation in terms for sofas / couches. My grandparents’ couch was their “chesterfield”. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/51 "2013-01-22T13:36:29Z")
Most of these I’m familiar with, so they don’t sound strange to me. Indiana origin, if that helps. For my contributions, my wife called the TV remote a ‘flipper-switcher’ when we were first married. I’m also convinced she made that up herself. I also remember the first gen remotes as clickers. The ones I had experience with made metallic pings of different frequencies. When I was a preschooler, I remember that anything my mother tried to convince me was yucky was ‘ish’. The term sort of also became the pet term for banana strings, which she also considered yucky, but I never did. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/52 "2013-01-22T14:13:22Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Are you old enough to remember when they DID click? > > (Better yet, are you old enough to remember when the clicking was how they worked? I’m the former, not the latter.) > > My mother still says clicker occasionally. I’m old enough to remember when they were a push-button console physically attached to the tv. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/53 "2013-01-22T14:26:15Z")
Washcloths were called washrags. Some older relatives called any laundry hung up to dry outside as “rags”. I still say “Decoration Day” in place of Memorial Day at times. Stereos were called hi-fis. Cinemas were called movie houses. ---
**Author:** ![MN\_Maenad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e95f7d/32.png) [@MN\_Maenad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MN_Maenad)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/54 "2013-01-22T14:26:29Z")
On my mom’s side, Grandma added an “r” to various “-ash” words, mainly wash = warsh. Which was weird since she was born and bred in MN. On my dad’s side, Gramma always called the couch the “davenport”, and Grampa called a whiskey-sour a “kanooper”, which I’ve never heard anywhere else. I’m actually surprised I don’t have more from Gramma, since her mother spoke Czech almost exclusively until the day she died. It’s surprising there aren’t more Czech terms floating around the family. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/55 "2013-01-22T14:27:13Z")
Sometimes words are more localisms. Growing up in Phoenix, all the sliding glass doors were made by the Arcadia Door company. I still say “Open the Arcadia Door”, meaning the sliding glass door. ---
**Author:** ![Sally\_Mander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/56 "2013-01-22T14:40:58Z")
When I was little, bug juice was a generic term for Kool-Aid or any kind of fruit-flavored drink. Not real juice, just the powdered stuff that was mixed with water. Definitely not soy sauce! My grandparents always called the sofa a davenport, and the love seat was a divan. My grandmother also carried a pocketbook. I always thought that was such an weird term. It’s not a pocket, it’s not a book, it doesn’t fit in your pocket… The TV was a television set. I remember my grandmother asking if I wanted to watch my stories on the television set. I could never figure out why she didn’t just call it a TV. I’m just old enough to remember calling the remote a clicker. The first ones I remember had just a few buttons; on/off, volume up and down and channel up and down, and yes, it did make a distinctive clicking noise. I know my parents called jeans dungarees, and we wore “rubbers” over our shoes when it rained. My mother still calls the vacuum a sweeper. I remember calling the microwave a Nuker, because you were blasting your food with nuclear radiation. “You gonna put that in the oven?” “Nah, I’m gonna nuke it.” My ex-MIL called running errands “running the roads” which (to me, at least) always sounded a little like you were doing something you shouldn’t be doing. She commented to someone else once that she had watched the kids for me one day when I had a doctor’s appointment and some other errands that I’d been “running the roads all day” and I had this odd need to defend myself. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/57 "2013-01-22T15:05:50Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I’m old enough to remember when they were a push-button console physically attached to the tv. 🙂 So am I! The first one we had (in the early 80s) was [one of these](http://www.electronichouse.com/slideshow/category/3926/656)…a few years later replaced by [one of these](http://www.etsy.com/listing/109718448/vintage-tv-remote-1980s-remote-control). The Jerrold clicked (and needed actual effort to get the buttons to depress), the IR remote didn’t. (I loved playing with that Jerrold remote…made me feel like I was on a space ship.) ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/58 "2013-01-22T15:16:34Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Are you old enough to remember when they DID click? Not even close. ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/59 "2013-01-22T15:17:55Z")
Of course, [Frigidaire](http://www.frigidaire.com/) was and still is a brand of refrigerators, and oleomargarine the original name for margarine used by its French inventor. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948/60 "2013-01-22T15:40:18Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > - _Colored_ as a noun = black person. (e.g. “Look at that colored.”) Hah, my dad still uses “colored.” He uses it and the word “negro” interchangeably. He also refers to people as Latins and Orientals. Oh, dad… > [@MN\_Maenad](#): > > On my mom’s side, Grandma added an “r” to various “-ash” words, mainly wash = warsh. Which was weird since she was born and bred in MN. Yeah? I’ve never heard people insert the “r” into anything so gratuitously as I had when I moved to Minnesota. Whenever someone asked me why I was moving, I’d say “Because I can’t stand to listen to people say ‘warsh’ anymore!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-your-grandparents-parents-have-weird-names-for-things/647948.md?page=4)