Regional variation in words

Same here. That's the official term at In-N-Out, in fact.

 

YES. DOUBLE DOUBLE IS IN-N-OUT SPECIFICALLY AND DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER IN GENERAL.

 

I am indeed in a hella rural area, for data-collecting's sake. (Iirc the discussion started with Pittsburgh tho, which is... decidedly not rural.)

 

TIL yellow jacket does not mean "a certain kind of extra aggressive wasp" everywhere, just most parts of north america.

 

We use right the same way in the south. "I'm right mad!" is a pretty common one.

There's also "bless your heart," which is as far as I understand a very kind sentiment in the rest of the world, but here it basically means "you are too stupid for words."

Also the different meanings of lube in England and America.

 

I have some wet weather lube for my bike chain. Surprised me when a friend came over, spotted the bottle on my desk and exclaimed, "lube!"

I was like, well yeah, but I thought I'd put it awa- oh.

 

Brits IIRC don't use the term except for sexual lubricants, right?

 

Except in bike shops. Even so, I asked for "oil" and definitely didn't snigger when the mechanic said "this is good lube."

 

Not quite the same but similar, if you hear someone in the North of England say 'bless (him/her/‘em are optional)' when referring to a relative it usually means ‘they're dumb a as a box of rocks but we love them anyway :p'

For example my mum often goes 'bless her cotton socks' when referring to my cat Lupin, who... doesn't really have the common sense the gods gave biscuits ^^;;;

 

apparently in northern ontario backpacks are packsacks sometimes? some signs on stores say they dont allow backpacks and some say packsacks. and a cottage (like, a house on a lake that rich families will go to for weekends or whatever) is "camp". youre not at the cottage youre at camp

 

@Everett hunh, my parents don't use camp that way, but maybe they're not from far enough north.

 

... so I thought all wasps were yellow jackets, incidentally.

Anyway! So I'm from a major Great Lakes-region city. It has plenty of its own slang, and, being such a major city, also has bits from all over... For example, I say 'y'all'. Somehow. A number of the regional differences are little things, though, some rather specific to the city (like, expressways are always known by name, whereas most people elsewhere say like, 'Oh, I took I-80'. Also, designators for types of streets are almost never used, it's just 'x' instead of 'x avenue'). Off the top of my head I can think of:

-The weird tendency to make store names plural/possessive ('I'm going to Barns and Noble's', 'I'm going to Aldi's')
- 'Over by/down by' as a common way to describe where something else is, or where you're going or were
- The weird adoration of 'with' to end a sentence ('wanna come with?', 'go with')
- 'Right quick' - Just for a second. 'I'll come with when you go down by the lake, but I need to do this right quick'
- It's supposed to be 'pop' but I somehow missed that one. I am a failure at being from my hometown
- Also, this one is apparently actually from Wisconsin - Madison, in fact! - but 'coastie', for someone from the, well, coasts, who comes to the Midwest and acts snobby. A yuppie in training.
- Those things you wear for sports are 'gym shoes'. Personally, I think of 'sneakers', 'tennis shoes', and 'gym shoes' as all different things. Gym shoes are the same thing as trainers, but tennis shoes and sneakers are something else.
- Leaving is often referred to as 'dip'-ing. EDIT: Actually, so is stopping by. 'We'll dip in over there right quick'
- 'Square' for a cigarette ('bum me a square right quick before we dip and go down by the lake?')

 

it might just be a thunder bay thing? its definitely a Thing there for whatever reason

 

I'm from the South and I use all of those daily! Interesting.

 

Oh also, Safeway gets smushed together with its S shaped logo to become "Safeways".

(Eta: not in the south, in weird ole thunder bay)

Edit again:

Idek, commercials try to sell you their product and or service by like saying you could spend time with the family at camp instead of doing your taxes or whatever, and ladies at knitting group talk about "such and such thing happened when we were at camp".

Also apparently a snowmobile is a "snow machine"

I had to look online to confirm this but ive heard commercials for catering places saying theyll do "shags" which... apparently that is "a party thrown before a wedding to raise money for the couple. A dance at a rented hall"

Because it has the biggest Finnish population outside of actual Finland, a sauna is pronounced like sow-na. First syllable rhymes with bow (the verb)

 

Also I don't know if this has been mentioned because the search doesn't like it, but "might could". "Could you get me a plate?" "Yeah, I might could do that." In my area it has the indication of indulging someone for some small task they probably could do themselves, or teasing a bit. Some older people or people in more rural areas use it more seriously, like "I might could put in a fence to keep the deer out of the garden."

 

I've heard it as a teasing thing, but usually the more serious version was presented as pitching an idea. Like "I might could bring lemonade to the BBQ" with an affirmative or no from the person they're talking to.

 

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get across with the second bit, just couldn't figure out how to phrase. I meant "more seriously" as in "not teasing". Ty!