# US Regional Vocabulary Differences **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 5, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006 "2009-01-05T22:31:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/81 "2009-01-07T05:20:59Z")
What about bap/bun? I’ve always heard it as bun (Midwest) until my Japanese teacher went on a tirade about how much she hated bun and told me that her family called them baps. ---
**Author:** ![zephyr242](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c5a1d2/32.png) [@zephyr242](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zephyr242)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/82 "2009-01-07T05:33:05Z")
I’m so glad to see other people know the terms “red up the room” and “hassock”… When I moved from PA to Arizona, people thought I was nuts for some of the things I said. How about eggs that are over easy? Dippy eggs. What if you’re squirming or antsy? Rutching around. Barely drizzling outside? It’s spritzing. Another plural form of “you” other than “y’all” and “yinz”? Youse. And have you noticed that Pennsylvania seems to one of the only states that gets called by its 2 letter postal abbreviation, Pee-Ay? I’ve never heard anyone saying they’re from See-Ay or Eff-Ell. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/83 "2009-01-07T06:01:22Z")
AZ gets called AZ quite often, to my recollection (which is not now nor has ever been infallible). ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/84 "2009-01-07T06:07:53Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > And that stuff that comes out of a machine and goes into a cone at places like Dairy Queen and McDonalds: soft ice cream, frozen custard or soft-serve? It’s called a creemee. I don’t know how regional it is, but that’s what folks 'round here call it. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/85 "2009-01-07T06:10:22Z")
There are many thousands of such differences. There has been an ongoing project to create a dictionary of such differences: [The Dictionary of American Regional English.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_American_Regional_English) The firsst volume (A-C) came out in 1985, and the most recent volume (P-Sk) came out in 2002. Maybe one of these years it will finally be finished. In any case it is over 4,000 pages long already. Ed ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/86 "2009-01-07T06:25:25Z")
> [@Rebo](#): > > Oh, I remembered another one. Some people call green peppers “mangoes!” I still can’t wrap my head around that one. Yup, I called 'em mangoes just because the parents did. Here we have our picture taken, down South they have their picture made. Turn signals vs. directionals (Ohio.) Please (Ohio?) or Say (S. Carolina?) if you didn’t hear what someone said. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/87 "2009-01-07T06:26:01Z")
> [@nikonikosuru](#): > > What about bap/bun? > > I’ve always heard it as bun (Midwest) until my Japanese teacher went on a tirade about how much she hated bun and told me that her family called them baps. What is this referring to? 😕 A hot dog bun? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/88 "2009-01-07T07:02:41Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > What are the noonish and later meals called. > > IN Maine it was dinner and supper. Here it seems to be lunch and dinner which seems to be normal to me now. > Anyone else use supper? Not only is this regional, it’s also _generational_. My mother baffles my brother and I by refering to lunch as “dinner” because as far as we’re concerned “dinner” means supper. We grew up in MA and NH too, so it’s not as though we’ve lived places far from where she grew up. It’s one of those things that used to be different here, but aren’t so much any more: an other example is all the books on regionalisms say we call soda “tonic” up here. I don’t know anyone under 65 who calls it anything but soda. I’d like to know where the OP is from, because I’ve never heard that word to mean anything but a quaint way of saying sled. A not often used term, at that. ---
**Author:** ![AngelSoft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angelsoft/32/440_2.png) [@AngelSoft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelSoft)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/89 "2009-01-07T07:37:55Z")
Lived in the south till I was 12 and lost most of my ‘south-isms’, however the only one to really stick has been ‘coke’ and it annoys the hell out of people over here on the west coast! Another thing I recall though, that I don’t hear much about. When you needed a copy of a paper, you would ‘xerox’ it. However here on the west side, it’s ‘photocopy’. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/90 "2009-01-07T10:42:27Z")
> [@AngelSoft](#): > > Another thing I recall though, that I don’t hear much about. When you needed a copy of a paper, you would ‘xerox’ it. However here on the west side, it’s ‘photocopy’. Not sure whether that’s a regionalism. I think everyone used to call it a “xerox,” since that was the company that made them at the time. Then other manufacturers started calling them “photocopies.” ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/91 "2009-01-07T17:42:23Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Not sure whether that’s a regionalism. I think everyone used to call it a “xerox,” since that was the company that made them at the time. Then other manufacturers started calling them “photocopies.” That’s only part of the reason. Xerox has worked hard to promote the use of “photocopy” or just “copy” instead of “xerox” as a generic term for a photocopy. When a trademarked/registered name becomes a generic term for a product, the company can be in danger of losing its trademark. This happened to the Bayer company a long time ago. “Aspirin” used to be a brand name for acetylsalicylic acid. Obviously, this was a severe blow. Other companies learned the lesson well, and work very hard to avoid having the same problem. ---
**Author:** ![Karyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/fbc32d/32.png) [@Karyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karyn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/92 "2009-01-07T17:49:53Z")
> [@Green\_Bean](#): > > That’s only part of the reason. > > Xerox has worked hard to promote the use of “photocopy” or just “copy” instead of “xerox” as a generic term for a photocopy. When a trademarked/registered name becomes a generic term for a product, the company can be in danger of losing its trademark. I worked at Xerox in the early 80s and we were forbidden to refer to them as Xerox machines or Xerox copies and you heard about it loud and clear if you slipped. They were very concerned about losing their trademark. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/93 "2009-01-07T20:47:44Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > A few Montana-isms, some inherited from my father and some picked up when I lived there:[ul] > [li]“Ditch” is the same as the Texan’s “branch water,” as in “I’ll have a bourbon ditch.”[/li][li]A “borrow pit” is the depression alongside the road from which dirt was taken to build the roadbed. I never got a definitive answer as to whether the term was a corruption\* of “barrow” or whether it referred to “borrowing” the dirt.[/li][li]Chewing tobacco is “snoose.”[/li][li]Something overly expensive is “spendy.”[/li][/ul] “Spendy” is a Montana-ism? I saw it in print and heard it used in conversation well before I ever went to Montana. On the other hand, I thought “creeper” when applied to a creepy person (and not a plant) was a Montana term when I started at university there, and when I came home to Washington for my first winter break everyone was using it, when they never had before. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/94 "2009-01-07T22:24:44Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Oh, just thought of one, what do you call the space in between two houses? In Chicago, it’s a “gangway.” (Older neighbors, when I was growing up, would jocularly dub it a “Bohemian air conditioner” because of the draft the space produces.) And what’s an “alley” to you? Here, it’s a paved, but (usually) not asphalted, access road to garages. It is also the road the garbage trucks take to pick up the trash. > > Do you use the word “front room” to indicate a living room at the front of the house, like here, or is it an anteroom, or is the term non-existent in your dialect? > > Another one that I recently noticed, what most of the country calls “rubbernecking,” we call “gaping” and the traffic caused by such is a “gapers’ delay.” One of the last columns that Mike Royko wrote talked about “gangway” and “frontroom”…but he also described the true pronunciation of the latter term as “frunchroom”. Since I’m originally from Green Bay, I’d never heard that term (much less the pronunciation)…but, not a day later, my wife (a native Chicagoan) was referring to our living room, and she said, “the frunchroom”. I stared at her, pointed, and said, “YOU SAID FRUNCHROOM!!” She still hasn’t forgiven me for that, and it’s been many years. 🙂 Re: rubbernecking / gaper’s delay…in Los Angeles, I’ve heard it called a “Sig Alert”, apparently named after a particular traffic reporter by the name of Sig. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/95 "2009-01-07T22:38:29Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > How do you pronounce Mary/marry/merry? Here, we pronounce them all the same (like “merry”). But when I lived in NYC, each was pronounced differently. The first vowels were: > Mary: as in “ape” > Marry: as in “apple” > Merry: as in “air” Hmm, for me it’s Mary: as in air/pear Marry: as in apple Merry: as in pep Friends up here say all three the same, and also Barry/bury/berry which I would say as Barry: apple bury: as in pep (others may use more of an ooo sound, like worry) berry: as in pep I was raised in upstate NY by folks from Penna. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/96 "2009-01-07T22:42:27Z")
What others call a liquor or package store is a “party store” around Detroit. I’m not sure if it’s extremely local to SE Michigan or what, but I hear no end of teasing from others around the country when I type it at them online. It makes sense to me; you go to the party store to get the stuff (booze, chips, pop (;))) for your party! ---
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/97 "2009-01-07T22:50:32Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > What others call a liquor or package store is a “party store” around Detroit. Makes sense to me! In Rhode Island and nearby parts of Mass, they’re “Packy’s.” Also from RI, all convenience stores are “Cumby’s”, even if they’re not actually a Cumberland Farms. ---
**Author:** ![PharmBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@PharmBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PharmBoy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/98 "2009-01-08T00:06:52Z")
Grew up in Baltimore… A tobaggan is a sled The end of a loaf of bread is the heel. We say chuck… ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/99 "2009-01-08T00:21:05Z")
People here in Ga. will say they’re “fi’in” to leave. Short for “fixing to leave” and meaning (to me) “getting ready” to leave. I went to school in Va. and “made groceries” while I was there. My friends at home teased me mercilessly when I used the term back in NYC. I throw things in the garbage. People here throw things in the trash. People give me strange looks when I say Fayetteville using 3 syllables. It’s pronounced “Fetvul.” ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006/100 "2009-01-08T01:03:19Z")
We have this in Indiana, and I don’t know if it is anywhere else but whenever anyone uses it, it drives me up the wall. They call a Vacuum cleaner a “sweeper” as in “I’m gonna sweep the family room before company comes”. Oh that is INSANE! It doesn’t sweep! A broom sweeps, but a vacuum cleaner uses a VACUUM to CLEAN. I hate that phrase more than anything us midwesterners usually say [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-regional-vocabulary-differences/480006.md?page=6)