# What you called it at home vs. what everyone else calls it **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 21, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840 "2013-10-21T17:46:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/41 "2013-10-22T02:34:38Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > For the longest time it was frigider instead of fridge. “Fridgedator”. “Get me some milk from the fridgedator, please.” > [@Eonwe](#): > > I know this is not unique to my family, but the ‘extra’ room in the front of our house with the piano, pull-out couch (so guests slept there when visiting), was called the “den.” I don’t think I knew anyone else who had a “den”, other people’s houses had a “spare room,” “study,” “guest room,” “TV room,” but never a “den.” Another person who grew up with a “den” here. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/42 "2013-10-22T02:54:19Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > One time he came by my tent and asked me if I had any “kybe tape” (sp?) as if he expected me to recognize this somewhat recondite term; I’d completely forgotten this but we called the outhouse the kybo in scouts. Turns out, wikipedia says it is a [scouting term](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outhouse). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/43 "2013-10-22T03:18:26Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > FWIW Cheese toast is open face. > If the menu said “grilled cheese” why not read it that way? Yes that’s the only odd part on this page to me. My mom must have told me in the morning what was on the menu, saying toasted cheese, and I was re-iterating, not reading from the printed menu. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/44 "2013-10-22T03:40:54Z")
Soy sauce is “bug juice.” So I was taught by my father (on whom be peace), and so I have taught the Ottlets. While I was growing up we only had station wagons, and the area behind the second seat was the “way back.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/45 "2013-10-22T03:43:22Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > While I was growing up we only had station wagons, and the area behind the second seat was the “way back.” Same here. San Diego. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/46 "2013-10-22T03:46:28Z")
When I was a kid, it was ‘chesterfield’, not ‘couch’. ‘Sofa’ is relatively-uncommon here, and to me sounds vaguely pretentious. Anyone else call the horizontal surface behind the rear seats in a sedan, underneath the rear window, the “back deck”? Another thing we said was “aft” for “afternoon”, as in “What are you doing this aft?” When I was small, our neighbours across the street had a den. It wasn’t a guest room, though; it was quite small, and there was no bed. It was a relaxation room for the man of the house. (The equivalent for the woman of the house would probably have been called a “sewing room”.) We didn’t have a den. Our house was too small. ---
**Author:** ![Tread](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Tread](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tread)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/47 "2013-10-22T03:46:51Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Also “hot tamales” which everyone else called “sloppy joes” (the name was unique to our home geographic area). So this has me wondering…Did you call Hot Tamales, Sloppy Joes? Or call Sloppy Joes, Hot Tamales. And If you were calling HT - SJs… what did you call SJs, and vice versa? ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/48 "2013-10-22T05:08:12Z")
> [@congodwarf](#): > > … > > **Lute** - my family always called them oodles of noodles too! [Oodles of Noodles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5FqW-hCXKc) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/49 "2013-10-22T06:41:54Z")
The fridge was always the icebox (this was in the 1950s and '60s). The old-fashioned beer-can-and-bottle-opener with that pointy thing on one end was a church key. The record player was always a phonograph—or a record player. (I don’t think we ever had a proper stereo). Doing Number Two was taking a dump. What we would call Hamburger Helper today, my mother called goulash. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/50 "2013-10-22T07:13:14Z")
Canned hotdogs are called ‘wobbly sausages’. If something (TV remote, keys, etc) can’t be found in its regular place, it has ‘misappeared’ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/51 "2013-10-22T07:42:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “Fridgedator”. “Get me some milk from the fridgedator, please.” My mom calls it that when she’s not being very serious. > [@](#): > > Another person who grew up with a “den” here. None of the houses I grew up in had a “den”. They had “offices” (where my self-employed Dad did his business paperwork, so, yes, an actual office), “spare bedrooms” (also self-explanatory), “front rooms” (also called “living rooms”), and, once, a “game room”, which was a portion of a finished basement with a pool table, a foosball table, a bar, a sofa, a loveseat, a large CRT TV, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Always thought we kinda went overboard on that place.) > [@OttoDaFe](#): > > While I was growing up we only had station wagons, and the area behind the second seat was the “way back.” To me, this is the “Very back”, as seen in SUVs (what station wagons morphed into in the 1990s). Same concept. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/52 "2013-10-22T08:26:26Z")
sandwhich meat = donkey dick. I had never heard it called anything else (ie Devon) until I was at university ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/53 "2013-10-22T12:03:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “Fridgedator”. “Get me some milk from the fridgedator, please.” > > Another person who grew up with a “den” here. We had a spare bedroom upstairs that we called a den once… but it was seldom used and gradually filled up with the stuff that didn’t have anywhere else to go. Somewhere along the line, what used to be “the den” eventually became known as “the pit.” ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/54 "2013-10-22T12:36:07Z")
“Way Back” must be pretty common (it’s what _we_ called it – 70s NY metro area) – as it’s now a film referring to said space in station wagons/hatchbacks. ETA: The film is actually called the [Way Way Back](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727388/), but it is partly in reference to the station wagon space. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/55 "2013-10-22T13:04:02Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > The hatch or trunk space in all the family vehicles has historically been called ‘The Way Back’ for as long as I can remember. We had a 1964 station wagon which allowed different configurations of the back. When it was set up for maximum seating, there was the back seat, then a narrow space (where I liked to ride), and then a rear-facing bench seat called the Way Back. The bed of a pickup truck was the Yard. (This was when kids were allowed to ride in open truck beds.) We also had a place in our house called Under the Coats. This was in an open alcove between the living room and kitchen with a clothes rod in it. There was no door on it to make it a closet, and we didn’t have a name for the part where we hung coats, but anything stored on the floor underneath them was referred to as being under the coats, even when there were no coats present. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/56 "2013-10-22T13:36:39Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > “I want to ride in the wayback on the way back from Grandma’s!” There was the front seat, the back seat, and the way back. I’ve mentioned dad’s '66 Ford Galaxie 500 7-Litre before. I always called it ‘the 7-Litre’; not ‘Galaxie’ or ‘Ford’. There was no pillar between the front and rear windows. Putting all the windows down was sorta-kinda like being in a convertible. Dad and I called that ‘going sporty’. The car had bucket seats with a console between them. If I was a good little boy I’d get to sit on the console. This was called the ‘treat seat’. > [@gracer](#): > > Fast forwards = hors d’oeuvres (they help you fast forward to the meal, duh) Dad called them whores’ ovaries. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/57 "2013-10-22T13:48:53Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > [Frigidaire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigidaire) used to be to refrigerators what Kleenex is to facial tissues or Q-Tips to cotton swabs. They were the first company to manufacture self-contained refrigerators and home freezers. Evidently, in Egypt it is still common to generically refer to an appliance that makes cold air as a Frigidaire. When visiting there a few years ago, we stayed in a private residence that was otherwise vacant and our host assured us that he would equip the place with a “Frigidaire.” Indeed he did. Unfortunately for our needs, what he provided was a freezer instead of a refrigerator. We learned quickly not to leave our water bottles in it overnight. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/58 "2013-10-22T14:26:25Z")
> [@dwyr](#): > > [Oodles of Noodles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5FqW-hCXKc) You learn something new every day! I’ve never seen that commercial before (thank god because that was annoying). ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/59 "2013-10-22T14:33:08Z")
I really want a dooter now. I suppose I have one, though, don’t I? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840/60 "2013-10-22T14:38:06Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Another person who grew up with a “den” here. We had a den as well. It was the room in the back of the house that my Dad used as an office type thing. Later on it was converted into a bedroom for one of my brothers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-you-called-it-at-home-vs-what-everyone-else-calls-it/671840.md?page=4)