Helicopters- Western NY and CT
Helicopter seeds - Indiana
Helicopters - South Carolina
Helicopters - Illinois
Whirligigs - NY.
Helicopters - Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Helicopter seeds - Oregon
When we stuck them to our noses, we called them pinnochi-noses.
Helicopters. South Carolina native now living in North Carolina.
Helicopters – Iowa. I hate 'em. They take root in the vegetable garden and the flower bed. If I catch 'em when they’re small, they’re easy to pull, but give them a few weeks and I need to use a spade.
I hate silver maples anyway – every time we mow I have to walk the yard first to pick up all the little branches. They do give nice shade, but they’re a bitch to clean up after.
I don’t remember having a particular name for them. I don’t think there are many of those trees here - or maybe just not where I live(d). Mississippi.
Helicopters - Kansas (but mom was from Wisconsin…)
But never ONCE did I manage to grow a helicopter in the back yard…
Helicopters - Quebec. The same word was used by all the military kids when I lived in Germany too, and most of them were either Ontarian or Albertan.
Whirlygigs–Central IL where I grew up
helicopters - grew up in Oklahoma.
Helicopters - I grew up in Maryland. None here in Arizona.
My Dad calls them “wings” - he grew up in Boston.
Helicopters. I grew up in the U.P. of Michigan.
Helicopters-Western New York
My grandma in the Finger Lakes calls them whirligigs.
I wonder what everyone called them before helicopters were invented? Silver maple ones are the best- when they’re green, you can squeeze them and squirt the seed on someone. They have a range of a couple yards. Of course, there’s always the two ways of using them as a whistle.
I once asked my mother, who was born in 1913. She said, “Canadian soldiers” . . . which is also a term for mayflies. I’m guessing she may have had the two confused.
Strangely, I don’t call them helicopters; I simply call them maple seeds. Or actually ***damn ***maple seeds. If there were a market for maple seedlings I’d reap a fortune.