In college when you gave up the remote to someone else, we called it giving them the “conn”. As in the nautical term for the person in charge of steering the ship. We watched a lot of Star Trek.
I did manage to embarrass my niece, unintentionally. I was visiting my sister and staying at her house, so I made something or other that had gravy on the side. I hauled out the whisk she had, which looked something like this one. My niece, who was around 12 at the time, asked me what it was. I jokingly said “It’s a pocketa-pocketa” (because of the sound it made when whisking).
Unfortunately, that stuck in her head. When she got into her home-economics class in junior high and the teacher pulled one out and asked if anybody knew what the tool was, she piped up with what she thought was the correct answer. After the laughter died down, she whimpered “well that’s what my uncle called it”. The teacher bailed her out by saying that it was a good name for it.
Fast forwards = hors d’oeuvres (they help you fast forward to the meal, duh)
Bunk bed bus = double decker bus
Stinky pile = washing basket
One must take care to remember the Proper Grown Up Word for things because these perfectly cromulent phrases can be considered funny. By some people. Phhshh.
My mom used to make grilled cheese, but we called it “cheese toast.”
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.
I’ve never heard of an actual trunk being called the “way back,” but that was the standard name for the part of a station wagon or hatchback (such as my family’s AMC Pacer) that was way in the back—as in “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 assumed she thought grilled cheese and toasted cheese were two different things, and was informing the class that the menu was wrong
Or in the case of our VW bus with 4 rows of seats - the front, the back, the back back and the back back back.
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.
My father used to have his little names for things, but I think this might have been generational rather than anything else.
The only one I can remember is “guessing stick” for any kind of ruler or tape measure. I still call it this in my head, but never out loud because no-one would know what I was talking about.
To my everlasting horror, my father also participated in boy scouts as an assistant troop leader one year when I was in scouts. We went on a camping trip one time, and I guess his old military experiences came to the fore. 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; to which I said “what?” Turns out he wanted toilet paper because he was going to the latrine. I guess “toilet paper” was too sissy to say out loud at camp.
Roddy
You’re actually Chris Berman, aren’t you?
Our family room/TV room/den was called the hobby room. (This was WAY before people had dedicated spaces for “crafting.”) No hobbies were actually pursued in said room. Well, the sewing machine was in there, but it was in a cabinet so it looked like a regular piece of furniture most of the time.
This reminded me that, inside my family a refrigerator is called ‘the ice chest’. By god, it’s the 1920’s rural south with no electricity in my family’s mind.
Coca Cola, 7 UP, what most people call sodas is called ‘pop’ or ‘sodey pop’.
“Get some pop out of the ice chest” would be a typical comment. The plastic insulated boxes you take on picnics and put ice in; those are called ‘ice chests’ too. We’re not very imaginative. If it makes it cold–it’s an ice chest.
We called it the “Buttons”. As in, who’s got the buttons?
I knew my fiance was fully assimilated when he asked me to get some broshensquasher (Braunschweiger).
Lute - my family always called them oodles of noodles too!
In high school the snack bar opened individual-service bags of Fritos, ladled in some chili, and added shredded cheese and, optionally, chopped onions. They were called ‘pepper bellies’, and they still are in the Antelope Valley.
Everyone else calls them ‘Frito pies’ or ‘walking tacos’ or something else.
My mother called farting, shooting off a cannon.
Dad called it ‘letting wind’.
Eastern Kentucky or West Virginia? 