So packing up I tried on an old pair for size and told my wife “these swim trunks fit well”; she argued that the right phrase is “bathing suit.”
She’s originally from New Jersey and I’m a Chicago boy. Maybe it’s regional.
So what do you call them? And where are you from?
I would call them swim trunks or swimming trunks. “Bathing suit” suggests to me something women wear. I’m from Chicago.
Maybe it’s because I’m from Southern California but I have more names for swimwear than the Inuit have for snow. It all depends on what they look like. Few of the words in the poll are actually synonyms.
Swim trunks. Shaped like boxers, not a Speedo or something that looks like briefs.
Exactly this. I said “board shorts” because that’s what my current pair are, but I think my generic is “bathing suit.”
I think it is. My English comes from my New York/New Jersey-born parents, and they called them “bathing suits” - a catch-all term for all swimwear, male and female.
I prefer to swim naked, but in situations where that is inappropriate, I use “board shorts”.
Yep! East coast parents are cultured, and teach ya good.
Mine are from the Chesapeake Bay area, and when going to the pool or the beach, they dressed us kids in our “bathing suits”(both male or female.)
But later I met folks from the Midwest states. They wore “swim suits”. Uncultured heathens.
Next question: has anybody changed their terminology over time?
Maybe wore a bathing suit as a kid, but when you got older switched to trunks?
A baggy pair of shorts is a “bathing suit”. If it’s skintight it’s a “swimsuit”. “Boardshorts” (one word) are either flashy bathing suits worn by rich douchebags or tight shorts worn by girls.
These are the terms as I understood them as an Elder Millennial in San Diego who lived a couple of blocks from the beach in the late '80s and early '90s.
Yeah, this. The ones from the poll that work for me are board shorts and jammers. I have both, and they’re different things. I would never use either term to refer to swimwear more generally. I’m not positive, but I think swim shorts would be my general word maybe swimsuit. Bathing suit makes me think of a women’s one piece, though I’d understand it as referring to swimwear generally if that’s how it was used.
A bathing suit* is what I call the loose shorts with quick-drying fabric and a liner that I wear, regardless of their length. I’m from Tennessee.
*often pronounced “baby soup,” using my niece’s preschool pronunciation
I’d say swimming trunks or swimming shorts based on whether they were the budgy-smuggling kind, or the kind for chilling on the beach.
Bathing suit. Born and raised in Philly. Also, I’m 63, so maybe the local youngsters use a different term now? If so, they’re wrong.
Iirc…
Men - swimming trunks
Women - swimming costume (or suit)
Victorians - bathing costume (or suit)
Young people - cossie.
I’m from the UK.
I call them swim trunks, but in reality I just wear shorts to the beach because I don’t go into the water. I love the beach, but I stay under my umbrella. Likewise, I love boating but prefer to stay dry except for my feet/ankles.
Growing up in New Zealand they were called Togs, but over time I evolved into calling it a Bathing Suit.
Not that I wear anything myself, as I can’t swim.
Canada: swim suit or bathing suit, but never trunks. I picked swim suit first in the poll without realising that multiple choices were not possible.
To me, “bathing suit” sounds old-fashioned and euphemistic (and, as @markn_1 said in the first reply, feminine). I wear swim trunks to swim in, not to bathe in.
Other: quick dry hiking shorts and long-sleeved rash guard.
These should be added to the poll 