Local idioms

[zigletto]

I carry a pocket-book in which I keep the money that I use to pay for my wicked pissa milk-shake (which is milk and flavoring, shaken, as opposed to a frappe which contains ice cream).

I used the words 'wicked' & 'mental' in while teaching a class in San Francisco and was immediately asked where in Boston I grew up! Guilty!!!!

[cruisin]

I carry a pocket-book in which I keep the money that I use to pay for my wicked pissa milk-shake (which is milk and flavoring, shaken, as opposed to a frappe which contains ice cream).

I used the words 'wicked' & 'mental' in while teaching a class in San Francisco and was immediately asked where in Boston I grew up! Guilty!!!!

My Mom used to call it a pocket-book, she lived her whole life in NJ. I call it a purse.

[snoopysnake]

People say bubbler in the Midwest too. Actually, I hear bubbler more in the Midwest than in the NE, so maybe it depends.

Wicked I think is more of a British expression, but Boston has adopted a few British customs over the years.

Binky for pacifiers I think is regionally specific. So also is mamaw and papaw for grandparents. In the NE, you hear roundabouts instead of traffic circles.

I'm from Boston and we don't say roundabout or traffic circle, we say "rotary." BTW, it's pronounced "bubblah."

[Bostonfan]

Another one from my childhood is "jimmies". I don't hear it that much anymore. But it's the same as "sprinkles" that you put on icecream. I'd go to DQ and ask for a vanilla cone with "rainbow jimmies". IIRC, Rhode Island's word for sprinkles is "shots", but I don't know if I'm remembering that right.

[Kruss]

Is it only here in Chicago that we have front rooms? (Or, as we pronounce it, "frunchroom".)

Everyone here calls it "pop", but I started saying soda mainly because I saw a ditzy character on the show Vega$ when I was a kid, and she kept saying, "can I have a POP?" I thought she sounded so unintelligent that I began that day saying "soda".

Chicago's commuter train is called The L (for "elevated", I believe), The Lake is obvious, "The Cell" is U.S. Cellular Field where the Sox play, and we have two names for our expressways (the Kennedy or 90, the Edens or 94, the Tri-State or294, The Ike or 290).

[cynthiabc]

Another Chicago idiom that I remember - The Loop for the downtown area, (surrounded by the L).
Also I 94 (on the South Side) is called the Dan Ryan.
I grew up in Chicago, but I haven't lived there for over 40 years, so things may have changed.

[Prancer]

Is it only here in Chicago that we have front rooms? (Or, as we pronounce it, "frunchroom".)

We had one when I was a child, but I haven't heard that phrase since I left the farm. We called it a fruhroom, with a hard uh.

Everyone here calls it "pop", but I started saying soda mainly because I saw a ditzy character on the show Vega$ when I was a kid, and she kept saying, "can I have a POP?" I thought she sounded so unintelligent that I began that day saying "soda".

I grew up with pop, but gradually switched to soda in college. It seems to happen a lot around here; all of the college graduates I know say soda and all of the non-college graduates say pop. Some people use both.

[Spareoom]

I grew up in California and it's strictly called soda there, but moved to Chicago when I was 17. I still say soda and I can get a fair amount of flak for that, haha! To me, it's easy. Soda is a drink; pop is a sound.

[Prancer]

I grew up in California and it's strictly called soda there, but moved to Chicago when I was 17. I still say soda and I can get a fair amount of flak for that, haha! To me, it's easy. Soda is a drink; pop is a sound.

I used to think pop was a drink and soda was something you used in baking.

[milanessa]

I use both of them plus soft drink and fizzy drink. Can't remember which I learned first.

[KatieC]

If I used soda around here, someone would get a box of Cow Brand out of the kitchen cupboard. Root beer, etc are all pop.

[Ozzisk8tr]

In Australia you don't ask for 7 Up or Sprite, it is all lemonade. Pop is called "soft drink". A stroller is called a pram, a pacifier is called a dummy. Flip-flops are called thongs. Cookies are called biscuits, and Rooting also has a very different meaning down here...

[emason]

Where I grew up we used the phrase "going into the creek" for going downtown. Not sure if it's still used, but outsiders generally didn't get it, or looked surprised when they heard it.

In my hometown we didn't go downtown, we went downstreet. When my mother lived in Vermont, her town was so small it only had 2 streets and she went overstreet when she went shopping. Also in Vermont, my mother didn't long for spring to come, she talked about what she would do 'come greenup."

[michiruwater]

We call them roundabouts in MI, too, though I've heard a few people say traffic circle instead.

Either way, I hate driving in them.

[Angelskates]

But it's the same as "sprinkles" that you put on icecream. I'd go to DQ and ask for a vanilla cone with "rainbow jimmies". IIRC, Rhode Island's word for sprinkles is "shots", but I don't know if I'm remembering that right.

We call them "hundreds and thousands".

[emason]

Another one from my childhood is "jimmies". I don't hear it that much anymore. But it's the same as "sprinkles" that you put on icecream. I'd go to DQ and ask for a vanilla cone with "rainbow jimmies". IIRC, Rhode Island's word for sprinkles is "shots", but I don't know if I'm remembering that right.

In Massachusetts I never heard the word sprinkles when I was growing up; it was always shots or jimmies, depending on whether you were in Western Mass or Eastern Mass.

Also, the first time I heard 'wicked' used extensively, it was Down East in Maine - nowhere near Boston.

[Grannyfan]

And I saw an episode of "Say Yes to the Dress - Atlanta" and learned that in the South if someone says something is "lovely", it's their polite way of saying they don't like it. I didn't know that

I've always lived in the South, and I don't think that's true everywhere. I use the word "lovely" with its actual meaning. It can be used with sarcasm, but mostly it just means what is says.

I live in Arkansas, where I've heard the following all my life:

Here we use Coke to refer to soft drinks in general. "Let's go get a Coke." But of course you have to be specific when ordering.

If something falls over, we sometimes say it got "tumped" over.

"Catty-corner" as in "Their house is catty-corner from ours," means it's not directly across but more diagonally across.

A paper bag may be called a "poke."

"Fixing to" means "about to" as in "I'm fixing to go to town."

A "mess" of anything is a goodly amount, as in "We caught a mess of crappie,"or "She gave us enough turnip greens for a couple of messes."

Sweet milk is just regular whole milk as opposed to buttermilk.

A beauty operator is a hair stylist. This one must have fallen out of use because my daughter laughed like crazy the first time she heard me use the term.

[vesperholly]

"Bubbler" is still used as a generic term in several regional dialects of the United States, originating in eastern Wisconsin and remaining well-known throughout the state.

My best friend is from Appleton, Wisconsin, and said bubbler when we met in college. She also said "ralph" as a verb for throwing up, and on one memorable instance she "ralphed in the bubbler" which became a catchphrase

All the highways in Buffalo have names: the Thruway (90), the Youngmann (290), the Scajaquada (198), the Kensington (33). It wasn't until I went to college in Ohio where everyone called highways by the number (480, 77, 271).

Buffalo English is well documented. One of my favorite bits is how to pronounce Toronto. If it's more than one syllable, you're doing it wrong. An episode of Alias referenced Buffalo State, which exactly no one calls it. Buff State.

Another one from my childhood is "jimmies". I don't hear it that much anymore. But it's the same as "sprinkles" that you put on icecream. I'd go to DQ and ask for a vanilla cone with "rainbow jimmies". IIRC, Rhode Island's word for sprinkles is "shots", but I don't know if I'm remembering that right.

We said "jimmies" in Buffalo! Weirdly, it was usually for chocolate. Chocolate jimmies and rainbow sprinkles.

"Carry-corner" as in "Their house is catty-corner from ours," means it's not directly across but more diagonally across.

It's "kitty corner" here, but oddly enough I didn't grow up saying that.

This might be a family thing, but we all say "___ as all get out", basically meaning intense. "She was drunk as all get out" means she was really, really drunk.

My mom also called footie pajamas "bunny bags". I've never heard anyone else say that.

[gkelly]

Flip-flops are called thongs.

To me, flipflops is a more generic term: thongs have a little post that goes between the big toe and second toe (which I find uncomfortable), but there are other kinds of flipflips that just have a band spanning the whole width of the foot, tightly enough to keep it on (most of the time).

[Angelskates]

To me, flipflops is a more generic term: thongs have a little post that goes between the big toe and second toe (which I find uncomfortable), but there are other kinds of flipflips that just have a band spanning the whole width of the foot, tightly enough to keep it on (most of the time).

We call non-thong slip on shoes, "slip-ons", or sometimes sandals.