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Language Meme

I have borrowed this meme from Ms. Mac. She answered hers in three languages because she's smart that way. Me? I've got just one.

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
A creek, and definitely not a crick. Or maybe it's a stream.

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
Shopping cart

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
A lunch box. Local phrase: bucket

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
Frying pan or sauté pan

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
A couch. If they're skinny people, then maybe they can all fit on a love seat.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
A gutter which feeds into a down spout

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
A patio if the floor is made of brick or stone or cement. If the floor is made of wood, then it's a deck. This confuses me because these things are often not covered, so maybe what we're talking about is an enclosed or screened-in porch.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
It's soda to me because I picked that word up when living in New Jersey, but where I grew up in Indiana, it was known as "pop." When I first moved to Ohio and said "soda," older people thought I had an upset stomach and needed a bicarbonate.

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
A pancake

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
A sub, short for submarine

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
Trunks unless they're icky and are wearing a Speedo instead.

12. Shoes worn for sports.
Tennis shoes even though most of them aren't warn to play tennis. My kids just call them "shoes."

13. Putting a room in order.
I say "tidy up," but the local phrase for the true locals is "read up," as in getting the place ready.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
It's a lightning bug.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
A rolie polie

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
A teeter-totter or a see-saw

17. How do you eat your pizza?
It's finger food never to be eaten with a knife and fork. In New Jersey, people fold the slices in half for some reason.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
It's a garage sale even if they don't have a garage, or sometimes it's a yard sale.

19. What's the evening meal?
For me, it's dinner, but my parents called it supper.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
A basement

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
A drinking fountain

Comments

dive said…
Wow. Lots of new Americanisms for my transatlantic dictionary, Robyn.

For some reason, we call our rolie polies "wood-pigs".

Hot pizza we eat with knife and fork; cold pizza with fingers. No particular reason (except we don't want to get scalding mozzarella stuck to our hands).

Shopping trolleys, not carts.
Trainers fro sports shoes.
Other than that, we could probably understand one another. Hee hee.
Ms Mac said…
Well, now I just want to eat cold pizza with my fingers.
Shazza said…
My answers would be very similar to yours except some folks 'round here call subs "hoagies" the closer you get to Philadelphia.

Shoes worn for sports: sneakers
Lulubelle B said…
Love this! I agree, mostly, with the following exceptions:

5. sofa
8. soda
10. hero (but I've learned to say "sub")
11. bathing suit
12. sneakers
13. clean up
16. see-saw
17. with your hands, folded in half
21. water fountain (recently learned the term "bubbler")

Here's another...when standing one behind the other, waiting to check out at the supermarket, are you

a. on line
b. in line
Scout said…
I am IN line.

Do you cut the grass or mow the lawn?
Lulubelle B said…
I am ON line.

I live in an apartment, but if I had a lawn, somebody whould have to mow it.

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