This is what I have always heard. A pony tail looks like a Ponies tail. Long, flowing and straight. A pigtail is corkscrew curls like a pig’ tail. I’m thinking of Cindy Brady from The Brady Bunch.
Ooh! Just remembered that my Mom and I called them “Puppy Ears!” Didn’t remember that until I saw someone post “doggie ears!”
Pigtails.
Grew up in Kentucky, FWIW.
All hair pulled to back and secured with elastic or ribbon = ponytail
(Can also be pulled to one side, but I think that would be called something else, maybe a side ponytail)
Hair parted down the middle and pulled to each side and secured with elastic or ribbon next to the head = dog ears
Hair pulled to back and braided = braid
Hair parted and braided on each side = braids OR pigtails
I had seen that thing with elastics at intervals down the length of the hair which someone called a “mane set” but I had never heard that name–or any other name–for that style.
California, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado
(I have heard people refer to dog ears as pigtails, but they are just wrong.)
Me, too. Alabama. And I’d never heard of “dogears” or “bunches” until just now!
I didn’t vote for that, since I haven’t heard it since I was a kid. It seemed like pig tails grew to take them up.
I have referred to someone as having two pony tails, but that means they’re both in the back.
Same.
You beat me to it. Then again, I only call them hummer handles when the woman is old enough to legally give hummers. At that point, no woman should be wearing pigtails. If you’re wearing them, you’d better be planning on having them used that way.
(almost) Same age, same description. Not braided was always dog-ears to me. Ponytail in back, and braids were pigtails.
I’ll be 50 in June, and live in Southern Indiana.
I see a lot of different ideas of the hair styles of the 50’s. I was born in 1939 and so I was living in the fifties. A pony tail was all the hair pulled together usually at the crown of your head with a rubber band.
Pig tails were hair separated and braided( or plaited )or what every you want to call it. And they started low on the head. We just called it braids. But two made it pig tails.
Now as to when you had two pony tails over the ears it was called Dog ears. I sometimes am amazed how people can screw up any bit of history and change it entirely. Even my own daughter wants to argue these points with me. DUH !!! I was there and I KNOW the truth. And this is it. :smack:
Right. Because everything, especially language, is exactly the same as the 50s. You should meet Starving Artist.
EDIT: Nevermind that I grew up in the 80 and 90s and they were called either pigtails when broken into two or a ponytail when it was just one. I was there, I was living it!
(Ps, guys, this thread is two years old.)
Yeah, it’s an old thread, but it’s a question for the ages.
Another question: Why does 2=pigtails and 1=ponytail? That’s how I grew up hearing it, but I never understood the assignment. It’s not like pigs have two tails, do they?
WAG: A ponytail has more hair in it, so it’s thicker and lusher – more like a pony’s tail. Pigtails (both tonsorial and porcine) are shorter and thinner.
twickster, whose hair is in pigtails right now because it’s not long enough to get into a ponytail.
And they tend to curl under, giving more of the corkscrew look.