ruelle* I'm not sure if that counts since it's two different-but-very-similar language, but panzarotti in Corsica are sweet chickpea flour doughnuts, while in Italy, a panzarotto or panzerotto is a fried calzone.
We called those sideyards. And I can't think of any specifically southwestern words or slang, but if i do I'll come back to this thread. Oh, but there is one. We call old people who come down here in the winter 'snowbirds'. lots of old folks have second homes down here, and we have a lot of retirement communities or neighborhoods just for old folks. Apparently they have rules against having your grandkids over too often and too much noise and junk.
Ah, and while most people call the little cactuses that look like bushes with flat spiny pads 'prickly pears', some prefer to call them by their more traditional or hispanic name, 'nopales.' Singular pads, when used in dishes (surprisingly tasty de-spined, chopped, and fried in a saucepan with salsa) are 'nopalitos'.
Those are very regional words though, i can't think of any at the moment that refer to things everyone has where they live.
My favourite regionalism would have to gaunchies for y-front men's underwear. I picked it up from my parents, who come from Northern Ontario.
my mom's side of the family is from north-west arkansas and i hear my grandmother use "fixing to" (or, more accurately, "fixin' to") the way people from other areas use "going to" or "about to." the only sentence i can clearly remember her using it in is "well, if you don't know, i'm not fixin' to tell you," from a story about someone from another state hearing the word and demanding (a bit rudely) to know what on earth it meant.
i know a lot of the older generation around here (eastish texas) say fixin' to as well. i also know a lot of older farmers who grew up calling lunch "dinner" and dinner "supper". and lunch was more of a "sit everything out and people will come grab something when they get a break" thing rather than what you ate in the middle of the day and it was over.
also: y'all to mean you all, ain't in place of both aren't and isn't, and saying over yonder to mean over there. also telling someone something is "a ways" or "a while" when asked how far something was, usually to mean pretty damn far. also "give me a holler if you need something" to say ask them if you need help with something. i don't really know anyone under 60 who really uses these, though. although y'all is pretty universal and you either say it or you don't.
my mom uses "supper" for any meal that starts after 4 p.m. so we have supper usually, but we have dinner on thanksgiving because we start eating at either 3 or 4 p.m.
Southeast Texan, I say fixing to a lot. To the point where when I visited family in new York all the yanks were very confused and exclaimed that everything in Texas must be broken since I've gotta fix it all to do anything. Also the great soda/pop/coke debate. My dad is marrying someone from Ohio and we've had to explain to her when she was down here that "what flavour coke do you want" is just asking what kind of soda. Because down here Dr. Pepper is a "type of coke". Up there its pop.
the whole pop thing never sounded right to me. i've heard of soda pop but that always seemed like a thing yuppies ordered in movies. although i can see why just saying coke is confusing even though that's what i grew up saying. edit: possibly interesting tidbit, my great grandpa used to just say drink, like "bring me some drink, sister" and he was specifically reffering to a kind of soda.
So funny story. I grew up in a place that says soda, but depending on the person you might get someone who says coke. So I was at a Wendy's ordering food and the person asks if I want a coke with it. And I said yes, and then waited for her to ask me what kind of coke I wanted (Orange soda). Apparently she actually meant Coca-Cola, because she didn't ask what kind and coke is what I got xD
I was talking with a brit about the "car park" / "parking lot" thing a while back, and came to discover that they had no term for vacant lots, and may not have them at all ETA More on topic thing: Apparently on the east coast they call scoops of ice cream "dips" (sorry if I'm repeating anything, I haven't read the entire thread yet)
But that's not true. I see undeveloped land on 'Home Under the Hammer' occasionally. Though I can't remember that they called it...
That's what they were saying and I guess it makes sense, but it still seems weird to me that, say, a house is never condemned, demolished, and left with no house on the property for a while. Since space is such a limited thing, though, I suppose something would come to fill that space very quickly? Vacant lots are such a thing over here, though, it's so weird that it's not a universal concept
Eh yeah, hyperbole. Sorry. I mean there's so much less available land than in places with a lower population density that there's almost no reason to have a distinct term for a vacant lot. Land's either currently being developed, is already farmland/housing, or is run down.
Ran into some interesting variance today at a family gathering. Here if you call someone a "coonass" it's not a slur or anything unless used in a specific way, i.e. "you lazy coonass". So as a descriptor of the type of people (cajuns) it's ok (here at least, don't know about other places), but can be an insult if used a certain way. As an aside I've gotten into a bit of trouble with this when I lived in Oklahoma and unthinkingly describes myself as a 'half-ass coonass' without realizing that the black people around me had never heard of the term and there was a bit of explaining I had to do since 'coon' is also a slur for african-americans. So that was a fun evening.
Southern Appalachianer here and hoo boy do we have a lot of weird words. Sorry if I repeat something that's already been said, I didn't read the whole thread. My favorite thing is probably the assortment of vowels and hand motions to describe something you don't know the word for, but I think thats more of a universal thing? Kyarn is the local dialect for carrion, which is very fun to say. Haint is the word for ghost, though mostly just older folks use it. "Fixin to" is a big one, and so is "liketa", meaning "very nearly" especially in an exaggerated sense ("he liketa killed that poor boy!") One that I've only ever heard in my area is "sigogglin", meaning something that's crooked or warped, especially due to shoddy craftsmanship. Like, "That floor is so sigogglin I can't hardly walk on it". (A Blibbet is a word for a roadkill squirrel in my family, but I think my papaw just made that one up) Pone is a word for bread cooked in a skillet, like cornbread or cat-head biscuits. A "holler" (hollow) is a space between 2 mountains or a ridgeline used to get from one valley to another. Poke sallit is boiled (sometimes fried) pokeweed, which is toxic without being cooked and tastes sort of like onions mixed with okra. Also, a toboggan isn't a sled, it's a knit hat like a beanie.
