Regional variation in words

my parents had a second grade teacher named mrs kolander (KOH-lahn-der)

and so, as their private joke, that's how they pronounced colander

didn't realize it wasn't how you pronounce that till college

 

I've always called them "Hell bugs born of hate and fury, with a dash of vicious." But thats more of a personal choice.

 

I've heard it both ways here in north-east TN; I personally say "wasper", but my grandma and both aunt pronounce it "warsper". I'd say its more common to hear "wasper", but not by much!

 

Depends what you mean by gym shoes, over here. The lace-up/sometimes high-top kind are tennis shoes, but while you're in school and using the slip-on rubber-soled kind all my teachers - and my mum - called them plimsoles. I understand it's kind of a posh thing, but I can't shake off the idea of even slip-on Vans being secretly plimsoles XDD

 

No, I know high-top athletic shoes in particular get called tennis shoes, I'm specifically curious about "tennies."

 

So, I don't think I saw this in the thread before: Does anyone else call the act of microwaving something "Nuking" Ex: "I'm gonna Nuke a potato.", "I just Nuked a potato.", "I am Nuking a potato."

 

I do.

 

I do.

 

Definitely a thing I say, but specifically a thing I picked up from my stepdad. Mom and dad don't say it.

 

nope, I grew up with just "microwaving"

 

ive heard nuking, but it was more specifically for when you microwaved something to the point of exploding or burning it.

 

If I remember correctly, nuking came about as a term when the microwave was just starting to catch on in American houses. iirc, it was because of a pervasive Smyth that it was literally irradiating food to cook it. Though I watched that on the history channel years ago, so that might not be accurate. I just remembered that when I saw the notification for this thread and wondered if it was still a common usage, since it is in my house.

 

Wait, okay, but microwaves are technically radiation, so isn't that how it works? V low level radiation excites the water molecules?

 

Technically? It uses very high frequency radio waves, similar to radar actually but much more complicated. Breaks about to end though, so I can't double check.

 

Light is technically radiation. Microwaves use electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between infrared and radio waves, and water happens to absorb a lot of that band and excite, yeah. But when people talk about radiation in the context of, say, atom bombs, they usually mean high-frequency gamma rays. A graph:

 

Yeah, I knew that, I think I was being hyperliteral.

 

Something i just remebered: does anyone else call their fridge an icebox? I grew up hearing it from my great grandparents, as they were kids and then young adults back when non mechanical refrigerators were a thing