I’m taking about dough dropped into a fry-o-lator.
Some call it fried dough.
Some call it elephant ears.
Some call it funnel cake. (which I think it the same thing but just poured out of a funnel in strings, instead of dropped into the fat in disc form.
Funnel cakes are made from a batter, rather than a dough.
In Canada (the East) we call them Beaver Tails, but in the West they’re called Elephant Ears or Beaver Tails.
When my mom made bread or buns, she’d make fried dough, but she called them scones. Which, I found out as I grew up, was wrong, but she’s MOM!
If you lived near a native reserve you call it Bannock.
The purveyors of the flavorsome, fried entanglements of chewy, just-this-side-of-sweet goodness usually have FUNNEL CAKE emblazoned across their stands, here in Baltimore. At most outdoor festivals, there’s always a merchant who makes the mouthwatering morsels of low-brow heaven.
Elephant ears are different, though. They’re crispy, flaky, layer-y cookie-type treats. They’re equally yummy.
Probably a doughnut.
Zeppolli, must be eaten just this side of searing hot.
Jamacian: Johnnie Cakes.
It depends on what kind of dough you’re talking about. There are funnel cakes, then there are hush puppies, bannock (known in the Midwest as Indian fry bread), then there are donuts, fritters, and Johnny cakes, and a slew of Indian (Eastern Indian - as in on the subcontinent of Asia) types of deep-fried breads. All of them yummy as all hell.
God, I’m hungry.
Elephant Ears are fried dough (you take dough, you make it flat, and then you deep fry it, putting butter and cinnamon sugar on it.) It looks flattish (with air bubbles, but mostly flattish - kind of like a deep fried tortilla)
Funnel cakes take batter and you put it in something like a pastry bag and then squiggle it out into the oil to deep fry it. So it looks like a mound of fried squiggly stuff. It isn’t as good as an elephant ear.
THis is just my upbringing. To me “fried dough” is really “pizza frit(?)” with a long e sound in the second word. Possibly it really starts with a “v”. That’s what my mother and her mother called it.
Maybe someone else who happened to be born into the One True Nationality 
can verify the pronunciation and give the spelling.
True Blue Jack
Around here all three of these are different things in different shapes and consistancies. Elephant Ears are flakey, Funnel Cakes are ropy and fun to eat, and Fried Dough is a shapeless lump that tastes quiet good despite not being much to look at.
I call plain fried dough frybread (as in Indian or Navajo frybread), typical Native American snack offered at fair stands in the Southwest. It can be the basis for a Navajo taco/Indian Taco or you can eat it with honey/powdered sugar.
I call slightly seasoned fried dough shaped like a triangle a sopapilla. You eat it with honey.
I call fried dough made from coarse cornmeal, egg, and seasonings a hush puppy.
I’ve never eaten a funnel cake or an elephant ear.
Oliebollen is the name for it in my area. It’s literally dutch for “oil balls”, or so I’m told.
Laqum. Its an Adighe word.
Phillistine! 
In the Great Midwest, elephant ears were the original fried-doughy-calorie-laden delicacy only available at the local fairs. Then came along the upstart funnel cake which is a thinner batter that’s poured into the hot oil resulting in a fried-ropey-calorie-laden delicacy. To add insult to injury, most of them are available in the standard powdered sugar covered variety OR smothered in sweet fruit pie-filling stuff.
Y.U.M.
In Albuquerque it’ definitely frybread or sopapilla. If you start talking about elephant ears people will think you are referring to an ornamental plant also know as the caladium.
It’s a beaver tail . “Queue de Castor” in French.
Best eaten with cinnamon, sugar, and lots of lemon. Mmmmmmmm.
I don’t know how to spell it, but my friends from Louisiana sprinkled on powdered sugar and called then “benays”, or something close to that. Light, hot, and delicious.
Served them with that awful coffee stuff (chicory) they have there. Aaack!
Peace,
mangeorge
Beignettes iirc 
Funnel cake sounds awfully similar to churros to me.
And in general I don’t eat deep fried dough (unless they are donuts or bannock and then rarely, but on occasion I have beaver tails at the fair)
Pizza fritta, and you’re right, Jack it’s pronounced “pizza freet”, sorta like pasta e fagioli is pronounced “pasta fazool”.
Anyway, it’s pizza (bread) dough, flattened out and deep fried. Often served with butter and/or powdered sugar here in Southern New England, but also served with a generous ladle of tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.
The flat fried dough is elephant ears and the “coiled strings” dough is funnel cakes. I like elephant ears plain and funnel cakes with ice cream and chocolate sauce (or hot fudge).
Weird thing, I was just talking about elephant ears with a couple of friends who didn’t know what they were. I showed one of them the difference using this page, which I found on Google.
