Words your grandparents pronounced funny or used out of date terms for

My British granny pronounced food as you pronounce foot ( but with a d instead of a t). Cute

Refrigerators originally were boxes that you’d have to put a large piece of ice in to keep everything cool.

I sincerely hope you are trolling us with not knowing why it’s called an icebox.

Before homes had electricity, an ice box was a large chest made out of wood, lined with metal, which held a big block of ice in the bottom under shelves holding food. The ice block gradually melted and drained into a pan beneath the icebox -- my father's job as a child was to pour the water out of the pan every day so it wouldn't overflow onto the kitchen floor. A new iceblock was delivered weekly by a man driving a horsedrawn cart and it was a thrill for the city kids to see the iceman's horse arrive.

Not my grandfather but David Letterman pronounces kindergarten, "kinnergarde"

My grandmother was born in 1857, there were a number of strange words she used. I remember a stew she called slummulligan, what a horrible word. She died at 92.

Your grandparents are fucking retards, OP.

Worsher, Worshington, Feesh, Garbidge, Har, Dawg, Kwatah, Meelk

Darlin' would you get mama a Dr Pepper outta the ass box.

My grandparents (Californians) would pronounce Chicago with a hard "ch" sound at the beginning--not as "Shih-CAH-go" but as "Chih-CAH-go."

I never figured that out, since people from Chicago never pronounce it that way.

Eyetalian

[quote] Your grandparents are fucking retards, OP.

And you are an asshole; pronounced " ass-hole."

Sonny & Chair

TIE-ota instead of TOY-ota

My maternal grandparents were from eastern Massachusetts. (were kids/teens in the '30s/'40s). They called soda 'tonic.' I grew up in central Mass. in the '80s/'90s and that term was obsolete by then. But it was cute to still hear them use it.

‘Estra Lada’ the perfume.

Chimbley instead of chimney.

Amish : Ay-mish

Washington : Warshington

"Dapper"

Terlet.

My grandmother used the word “bedfast” in lieu of “bedridden”. She was born in 1920.

I remember when we used the term "Shut-In" for elderly people, usually women, who no longer left their homes.

Lunchbox=dinner pail Dinner=supper Refrigerator=icebox Stove burner=fire Dresser=chest of drawers Going to see a “picture” instead of a movie Dungarees=jeans Adding an “s” to the end of every store: “JC Penney”, “Krogers”, “Belks”, etc.

Grandma was born in 1914. Died in 1988. I still miss her and her mannerisms so much.

My pretentious, social-climbing UMC English grandmother is always pronouncing words oddly and laboriously.

For example, she'll pronounce every syllable in 'cho-co-late'. Or say chicken as, 'chick-UN', instead of the British standard 'chick-IN'.

Can't decide if it's a bid for attention, cognitive decline and dementia, or just a way to be awkward (or, 'OKK-erd', as my Dad would say).

It was called an "icebox," OP, because before homes had electricity, large pieces of ice were inserted into a compartment in the box that later came to be called the refrigerator.

Ice Cream Sun-dee Tues-dee Fri-dee.

My favorite one was when my grandparents called films "pictures". Did you enjoy the picture?

FYI: 'Picture' is short for 'motion picture.'

"Settee" for sofa

R24 were your grandparents from the West of England?

My one grandmother is from Virginia. She said "warter" and "Warshington". She also would always say "I swenny!" or "I sweanny!" I guess that was a polite alternative to saying "I swear!"

My other grandmother is from the Deep South. She didn't agree with using the proper names for genitals. She used terms like "tallywackle" (penis), "woo-woo" (vagina), and bumpagenous (butt). She said "tee-tee" instead of "urinate", and "doo doo".

My mother pronounced California as Cal-i-PHONE-ia. It's kind of embarrassing especially since I moved here from the New England.

An armchair in the formal living room was a fauteuil.

My grandmother pronounced New Orleans as New Or Lee Ans. It drove my stepdad nuts because he was from New Orluhns.

My 88 year old Dad calls Alzheimer's Disease "Old-Timer's Disease". He hasn't admitted to being an old-timer, himself.

"Carfare" for subway fare (NYC).

"The Dairy" for the corner deli.

Plus "The Culvuh [Culver] Line" for the F train. Other trains were referred to as the IRT or the BMT, usually not by letter names.

R22 I'm pretty sure standard British English does not stress the second syllable in "chicken."

Parmesan cheese pronounced " Par -mee-zhun."

Chifforobe for a wardrobe.

My grandma said deef for deaf.

Earle for oil.

My grandma used to call her TV shows her pro-grims. “Gotta go watch mah pro-grims”. She also called the Ramada the “Ram-a-dam-a”. Alzheimer’s was “Al’s Hammers”. My mom said my grandparents loved Norm Crosby and they both used a lot of malopropisms when the spoke.

She sounded exactly like Blanche Devereaux.

My grandmother called television programs "stories." She watched the "news stories" but not the "sports stories."

Missouri - Mizzuruh

My maternal grandparents moved from the farm to the city, but they would still say they were "going to town" whenever they went shopping.

My paternal grandmother called the black neighborhood "colored town" into the 80's.

My mother's parents were from the Midwest, and called the sofa the "davenport." and called an overcoat either a "duster" or a "chesterfield."

My grandmother says curious as kur-uss and uses it to mean strange, unusual, and hard to please.

She was born in 1926.

My grandmother pronounced "anyways" as "ennawez."

"Who-ah" for Sarah Palin and other whores.

My grandmother used the word "trade" for "shop," as in "I prefer to trade at the A&P".

My grandma pronounces "wash" as "warsh."

My dad, her son, has a few strange pronunciations, so I guess it's genetic. Although I make a point of pronouncing everything correctly.

R10 My old Italian-American relatives would pronounce the country It’ly.

R32 I love that kind of plain language.

People got dee-pressed when they got a dee-vorce.

My grandfather likes to have a bake badayda with his dinners

R21 here, apologizing for not using paragraph breaks between phrases used by my Grandma.

Motorsickle for motorcycle.

Ha-wah-yay instead of Hawaii.

My Dad once saw a "Sicilian" pizza on the menu and ordered it as a "Silicone" pizza.

He also wrote underneath the dining room table "dinning" table.

He wasn't much for spelling; there were more important things to do, like collecting the eggs from the hen house, milking the cows, and feeding the pigs.

A paper bag was a poke.

R2- My grandmother would refer to all refrigerators as FRIGIDAIRES

R55. Not to mention needing help behind the notions counter!

"Cunnin'" in place of "cute." "Aww, look at that cunnin' face!"

Channing, damn it!

(Maybe it was Margie Channing?)

My dad and grandpa(dad’s dad) used to say the days of the week as Mun-dee, Tues-dee, etc. also. They also used to refer to the basement as “down cellah”. I don’t know why, but I loved that.

One thing I remember my dad saying was calling gasoline, petrol. Now I know that’s European, but he was fourth generation American descended from Canada. Do Canadians call gas petrol, too?

Granny called her purse a pocketbook.

My mom has lived in the Phoenix area for most of her life and she pronounces it "Phoe Neex". It drives me *crazy*. I've told her that everyone she meets will think she's dumb if she pronounces it that way.

Telephone = on the wire

Italian grandma, sangwich for sandwich.

Rich grandma, Good might nurse! as swearing

Think I’ll rest a spell on the Davenport…

Beggel for bagel La Beetz for pizza Terlet for toilet My Polish Grandma, God rest her soul. She always gave me Red Rose tea and Social Teas when we visited. She loved her Red Rose. None of my family liked tea, so she called me My Tea Girl.

My friend's grandmother used to call Brazil nuts "n-word toes".

R68, that's what my friend's grandmother called her homemade chocolate-covered walnut treats.

Pie-A-Zer = piazza, used to describe our front porch.

My Grammy called soaps, "stories" and the comics page "the funnies".

My 80+ year old brother in law pronounces Home Depot with a silent "t" so that depot rhymes with Zeppo

Home Deppo

Drives me crazy.

Do you think the "t" should be sounded?

Ree-dick-a-lus

R73 I really fucked that up. I meant to say he pronounces it Deppo instead of Deepo

They used to pronounce Barbra Streisand, Barbra Streisland, like she was an amusement park.

Rotaserry Chicken. Funeral Parlor. Beauty Parlor. Ra-diator.

"Bum" for "bomb"

"Then they dropped those bums on Jaypan."

Winda shades.

Ill a noise.

[quote] My mother pronounced California as Cal-i-PHONE-ia. It's kind of embarrassing especially since I moved here from the New England.

I've heard this pronunciation (of California) before, by someone from the midwest who actually had lived in California (LA) for a while. Crazy!

My grandmother loved watching one of her favorites, Cheston Heston, in "The Ten Commandments."

Debutant-aye.

Tylenoy for headaches. Ester Lawdy.

I grew up with a country family, and they used the Appalachian/Ozark "a" at the start of some progressive verbs with an -ing ending. So if my aunt asked my grandmother if she was leaving, Grandma would respond, "Well, I'm afixin' to get agoin'".

Most would switch to standard English in public or among strangers, including Grandma.

My grandparents said "courtin'" instead of dating.

My my. Women who "court" never suck dick. So we've all met many of their husbands.

"Clutch." I have no idea what one is, but it was always used in connection with cars when I was a kid. A problem with the car? "Maybe it's the clutch."

Has anyone mentioned "eye-talian"?

The pastor's wife at our church used to teach Vacation Bible School during the summer. She called the prophet Joshua from the Old Testament "Josh-a-way."

My lovely wonderful late Grandma used the term "mongoloid" in reference to Down Syndrome.

[quote]She also would always say "I swenny!" or "I sweanny!" I

My grandma always said “I swannee.”

Film = Fillum

My old country Scottish nana with a third grade education once referred to someone being as rich as "The Shah of Irah".

When we giggled she added, "Didn't think I knew that, did ya?"

My grandfather, who arrived in America in 1950 at the age of 56, spoke four languages. English was his 5th language and was completely incomprehensible to him and he never learned to speak it much. The only two words in English that I remember him using were "toob" to mean a bathtub and "stroiy" to mean toss out/throw away. My grandfather died in 1968.

Where from, R95?

R96 Eastern Europe

My 90 year-old Kansan grandma pronounces “hired” as “HAH-reed.” Fired gets the same treatment.

Sssss…sat on a bench!

Can you play something for me on the Pie-anna ?

R377 They DECLINED? What an empty gesture. Idiots.

Whoops wrong thread. How’d that happen?

R102 The Official Queens Jubilee Viewing thread is down the passage and to your left.

My father said "Frigidaire" any time he mentioned the refrigerator out loud. So do I. Is "pocketbook" no longer what you call a pocketbook in North Jersey / New York?

Thats funny. I rewatched The Grifters last night and Huston kept pronouncing the city Los Angle-Lees. I think they were trying to make her sound like a 1940s dame.

My grandma loved books by Stefon King.

Whenever someone was swaddled or snugly wrapped, my mother and-or my grandparents would call them Pasha Booley Pasha (sp).

Pocketbook = Purse

Ear bobs = Earrings

Close = Warm and humid

From my wonderful grandmother born in 1897.

It’s pockabook.

Maternal grandmother called the sofa "the Davenport." Years later I looked it up, and Davenport was a maker of furniture long ago, evidently a popular one - for a short time at least.

Paternal grandmother always called water wa-wa, which drove me nuts. I think she must have called it that to her kids (my dad and aunt) when they were little, but then just kept calling it that. When I was around 12 and she would ask me if I "wanted some wa-wa," I wanted the earth to swallow me up. Mortifying.

My dad's sister says "worsh" for wash. The weird thing is that she's the only one in the family to do so. She also says UMbrella and INsurance. She always pronounces the l's in Pico de Gallo as ell, not ay, though she's been corrected several times (by her daughter, not me). Says shed-ule rather than sked-ule (she's not British). Come to think of it, she's just a nut.

That aunt married a man from Oklahoma who says Nawlins for New Orleans and when he has a backache calls it being "down in my back." His grandkids are his grandbabies. Oh, and they both called my grandmother "Mamaw," which I've always found cringeworthy.

My mother used to sometimes confuse me growing up by suddenly using a weird word I'd never heard before, like dungarees for jeans. She read a lot, so maybe she was just trying out her new vocabulary.

And finally, me. I grew up in the Midwest but moved to the southeast when I was twenty. When I would say "sack" instead of "bag," or "pop" instead of "soda," people would ask me what the hell kind of backwater I came from, anyway?! I quickly adapted.

Do you wanna sangwidge?

My grandfather never got my name right.

My grandma also said "davenport" and "mongoloid." The remote control was the "clicker.."

Just as my Italian relatives called the country Itly, I remember them talking about when Natly Wood drowned.

Instead of pronouncing Frigidaire “Frigid Air” my grandfather pronounced it “Frigi Dare”

I believe Brits still say "chest of drawers" instead of "dresser", R21.

[quote] Just as my Italian relatives called the country Itly...

So vulgar.

R117 It was. Funny, though.

R109 Why, thank you for telling me how my grandmother pronounced “pocketbook” when apparently she really meant “pockabook”!

R119 oh now, no offense. I was just offering up how the old gals in my family pronounced it. They weren’t as classy as your grandmother.

[quote]I believe Brits still say "chest of drawers" instead of "dresser.

In my southern family, the "dresser" was more or less counter height with a mirror. A "chest of drawers" was taller and had no mirror (of "mere-ah").

Soda was "so-dee."

Wow, R121 -- your family was fancy! Mine hung mirrors on the wall (full length ones were hung on closet doors) and we called everything with drawers that went in bedrooms a dresser (in the dining room was a buffet, pronounced the French way thank goodness).

[quote] They used to pronounce Barbra Streisand, Barbra Streisland, like she was an amusement park.

Well, she sort of was. Think of how many of us went on a ride there!

BerMOOda for Bermuda. (southern old guy)

My mother always said SeinFIELD no matter how many times she heard us say Seinfeld.

The car was the 'machine'.

I had neighbors who called the couch/sofa a Chesterfield. It's Brit in origin, but they weren't Brits. Clueless where the neighbors were from.

We had a settee as well as a davenport.

R11 Good comeback for a 5 year old, fucking goof.

My dad was an old school Jazz lover and he really enjoyed the trumpet sounds of Winston Marsalis. My Great Aunt had a huge crush on Marlon Brandell

A donut was a sweet roll

My grandma called gay men “fairies”.

R93, my grandfather who lived in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and could speak Scottish Gaelic, would say fil-lum for film.

My mother would tell me and my siblings "no grindle-grinding" when we were whining or complaining. I have no idea where that term comes from.

Yes, Marlon Brandeaux was sexy before he had his own gravitational pull.

Grandpa hated the man so much he'd never say "Roosevelt."

Another one from my grandma was she would watch the “Rosie McDonald Show” instead of Rosie O’Donnell.

My grandmother's word for porch was piazza, but only if it was a large one. A small porch was just a porch. She called late morning the forenoon. And she called those little human-shaped chocolate candies N—- babies. My mother told us kids not to say that.

A-rab

"Should I use ground turkey or Hamburg?"

R138 Western Massachusetts?

Duxbury

Put some Benny Goodman on the Victrola next to the davenport and chesterfield.

They would call underpants/underwear as "drawers." Panties were also drawers, or "ladies' drawers" for clarification.

They would pronounce pillows as "pillas." The woman in this movie clip does it, too, between 0:57 and 1:00.

My grandma and grandpa called McDonald's "MacDonald's."

Also, the woman in r143 is having a "conniption fit" over her dead dog.

"Phosphate." And "soda fountain."

R144, 'Mc' is the Anglicized abbreviation of Gaelic 'Mac', so it really shouldn't be pronounced any differently from Mac.

My mother used to talk about how men got women "all liquored up" to take advantage of them.

I remember years ago (Im 47 and I was ... 14 at the time?), my aunt in casual conversation said she "Jewed" someone down.

I gave my Mom a look, and she had a grimaced look. She was clearly embarrassed, but also was telling me to keep my mouth shut (which I did, 14 and all).

It was 20+ years ago, and it still bothers me. My mother is very liberal and outspoken when talking with my Dad and I, but others ... she just caves. I hope I'm a better (more back boned) person today.

"Fungia" for face. I have no idea how to spell it-- my Sicilian grandparents said a lot of things like that.

R149 Haha, relax, my mommy was a commie and she used to say that too.

R149 When I was a tiny tot decades ago I heard my Dad -- but never my Mother -- use that and I didn't make the connection till my pre-teens.

My grandmother used the term clothespress for a closet and bedclothes for linens.

A milkshake was a frappe. Was that only a New England thing?

"warsh" for wash

R154 A Friendly's Frappe!

The frappe originated in Greece.

I stayed with an aunt in NY over a summer, and we drank "Egg Creams". I had only ever had milkshakes or floats, and I've never seen or heard of one since.

She also pronounced the word again as aGayne.

Quite a famous old-time NYC refreshment, 158.

I had a second grade teacher who pronounced toilet twa-lay. This was in the 1960s. I wonder if she was just being fanciful or ironic, or really pretentious. She was one of those old lady teachers we all had back then.

My grandmother, born in the 1890s, always called the refrigerator the icebox, and she also made icebox cookies.

It’s slightly more complicated, r154.

Friendly’s - Fribble (originally unflavored ice milk, then it changed to soft serve, then finally ice cream, with syrup and milk).

Newport Creamery - Awful Awful (unflavored ice milk, syrup, and milk).

Milkshake - milk and syrup, no ice cream, mixed on a stick milkshake blender. The same kind used for a…

Frappe - ice cream, syrup, and milk; pronounced “frap.” In RI, also known as a “cabinet.”

Coffee milk - milk and Autocrat coffee syrup, mixed with a spoon.

Not my grandparents, but an old aunt always called station wagons "beach wagons."

Oh right, Friendly's Fribble, not frappe.

As for egg creams, I had one once years ago and was so disappointed. No cream. It was a weird drink.

My father said his parents when they used to go out on the town called it ‘steppin out’. Going uptown was going to the rich part of the city, (NYC) going downtown was slumming.

In my family, "stepping out" was what what a cheating husband did with some floozie.

A laxative was a physic, lol.

"I scream" for "ice cream"—dividing the syllables after the "I" sound, and putting the stress on the second word.

"Chrizmas" with a Z sound instead of "Christmas" with an S sound.

R168 my maternal grandfather had a similar pronunciation of gasoline. Gazzlean

Not a single word, but my mother's mother used to say "to home" (pronounced tuh home) instead of "at home."

Would you behave that way tuh home?

Everyone on my father's side except my paternal grandmother called the sofa the davenport. I always assumed that it was because they were from Iowa, and Davenport is a city in Iowa. This was, of course, incorrect.

My paternal grandmother called it the Chesterfield.

^Yes, my mother called the sofa "the davenport." My father called a wallet "a billfold."

My father did too

My 4th grade teacher born in 1945 would say MassaTOOsetts.

My mother pronounced homosexual as four words, stretched out. As in, “are you a ho mo…sex ual?”

[quote][R93], my grandfather who lived in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and could speak Scottish Gaelic....

Apparently, I learned here on DataLounge that Gaelic IS Scottish Gaelic the same way that a martini always means a gin martini, and that Irish Gaelic (or a vodka martini) is the version needing to be qualified!

Ta-may-tah

For my mom, ANY soft ice cream was a custard. I had to be sternly told years later that there's a difference between the two.

When I lived in Florida, one of my neighbors grew up in new York City. I heard her tell one of our other neighbors that she had to drive her cah to Tamper tomorrow.The drop the final "r" on words that end in "r" and tack them on to words that have no "r" at the end. I guess it all works out in the end.

My grandparents were European immigrants and learned English in NYC. For some reason, they both always called Pepsi "Pecksi." It's like they just couldn't say it the right way because they'd learned the wrong way. It used to drive me nuts, especially when they'd say it in front of my friends.

R166

You're right! I remembered this incorrectly, they called it 'steppin' and yes, 'steppin out' meant cheating.

R176, Irish Gaelic is simply Irish, so there is no need for the Gaelic part. But if you want to be authentically Irish, call it "Gaeilge."

i just heard Jeffrey Toobin (CNN) pronouce 'promiscuous' as 'promise-CUE-us'. Made me wonder if I'd been mispronouncing it or mis-hearing it all my life.

The word "wash" for laundry was pronounced WARSH. Same with Washington, DC. It was WaRshington, DC.

Miami being pronounced as "Miamuh," like at 0:30 in this video. Missouri was also pronounced with the second i sounding like an uh. Don't know if it was a Southern thing, but that's how my old Southern relatives pronounced it.

They would say Puerto RicA but Costa RicO.

R3 so the children of the neighborhood were happy see that the iceman cometh.

Eye-talian

Not a funny word but an old-fashioned expression: My grandmother (born 1898) would sometimes say "by and by" to mean "eventually". It does mean "eventually" (or it can also mean "someday" in a vague, distant way), but the expression had fallen out of use by the '60s, when I first heard her say it.

It's a nice phrase. By and by, perhaps it will be revived.

Although I spent a lot of time with him, my grandfather died when I was very young and I barely remember anything about him except he thought chewing gum was disgusting.

Meanwhile, my mother always carried several packs of gum in her purse and was always handing them out to us kids.

My grandmother was one of those old country women who just didn't talk unless absolutely necessary.

You could barely get five words out of her which was actually great because you can bet four of those words would be racist.

And here's the kicker kids: my grandfather was a black man passing as white.

She knew.

But she was a poor country bitch and he was a prosperous man who wanted to climb the social ladder with a second white wife and whiter family.

I don't ever remember my grandmother saying a word to my grandfather when he was alive other than "Yes" or "No" to whatever question he asked.

P.S.

This is my second nostalgic post on Datalounge tonight.

My first sounded so rosy which is very unusual when I recollect my youth.

This one was a little more on point with my actual experiences.

Lovely post.

Hysterical as HIGH-sterical.

[quote]Los Angeles with a hard G and a long E. "Los ANGLE Lees"

The only person I've heard pronounce "Los Angeles" this way was Angelica Huston's character Lily in The Grifters! True story.

Some of you apparently come from very, very, ignorant stock.

Aren't you the least bit embarrassed by your forbears stupidity?

On more than one occasion I heard my grandmother refer to the Japanese as "the Japs". Perhaps it was fairly common if you were living in America in the 1940's but I always thought it was somewhat strange for a woman who had spent all of her life living in Ireland.

My mother used to pronounce psychic like the word psyche. I can't explain how it came up so often, but no matter how many times I corrected her, she'd still do it. It used to drive me crazy.

She'd also refer to Princess Diana as Lady Di, which I think was very common among her age group, but she would then pronounce her name as Diane(two syllables). Like the above, it would me crazy, but she'd still do it no matter how many times I corrected her.

I think pocketbook originally meant a wallet or wallet-like thing. Which holds stuff, folds like a book and goes in your pocket. I'm guessing several centuries ago.

Upper Midwest grandma always said “oh for cry-eye” as a short version of “oh for crying out loud”

My grandparents pronounced Kenya as keen-yah. I thought that was the correct pronunciation until an awkward Geography lesson at school in the late 1990s when I was told pronouncing it 'keen-yah' is considered a little racist. I still don't know why.

R193 "Aren't you the least bit embarrassed by your forbears stupidity?"

I don't do "Oh dears," but if I did . . . .

I grew up saying The Ukraine. I understand that's not done anymore for some reason.

I heard PACK A STAND for Pakistan and RUSH HER for Russia from my Midwestern Gramps, born in the 1890's. He lied about his age all the time.

My grandmother called it a "sweeper" instead of a vacuum. And you fed your car gasoline at a "filling station." And the food processor, no matter the brand, was a "Cuisinart."

[Quote]And you fed your car gasoline at a "filling station."

Same here, although you would "fuel up" your car at the filling station. Actually, the attendant would do it for you, and also clean your windshield.

[quote] Eyetalian

Less an age thing and more of a regional term.

In fact, quite a few on this list are regional slang terms.

When gramma talked to the girls about their pocketbooks she didn't mean a wallet.....

Me too, R198. Two of them -- one for spelling and one for apostrophe abuse.

R194, Lady Di was how Diana was introduced to the world, when she was engaged to Charles and not yet a princess. She got the Lady title after her father became Earl Spencer.

Before Diana Spencer, Lady Di was what fans of Diana Ross called her.

R3, are you Margaret O'Brien?

My mother's grandmother (b. 1875) referred to a frying pan as a spider.

My father always referred to ketchup as Catsup.

Peachtree dish

My mother mispronounced Salmon. The correct pronunciation is: Sa-men. She pronounced it: Sal-mon.

Granny referred to her obviously lesbian sister, my Great Aunt Ursula, as 'never knew no man'

Father called pizza “Beetsa bye.” (Pizza Pie)

My mother always said prostate instead of prostrate and pronounced pharmacist “farma-stiss”

R207, I'm pleased to say that I am not Margaret O'Brien, who I detest and thought had died long ago until I looked her up just now. Mary Astor appeared with her in "Meet Me In St. Louis" and wrote that she was "a pain in the neck", which I was not surprised to hear.

[quote] The word "wash" for laundry was pronounced WARSH. Same with Washington, DC. It was WaRshington, DC.

This one is interesting because I think it is both a regionalism AND something that older people said or say.

It mostly appears in and around Appalachia - it's part of "Pittsburghese" and goes into Kentucky - but it is something that some people of a certain age have said. Rare to hear anywhere in New England and the West Coast, though.

See-ah-tul

Hamburg instead of hamburger. Oleo for margarine. Dungarees. My Grandfather called Yalies "Elis" and he and my grandmother used "colored" long long past it's sell by date. They never used the n word but they used hideous words for Italians, Irish, and Cubans and Puerto Ricans. People from Connecticut were Nutmeggers.

A neighbor who grew up in northwest Alabama and was about my grandma's age said "warsh" as well as "rench" (rinse): "I got my hair warshed and set down to the beauty parlor and they put a color rench in too."

A lover of trashy talk shows and tabloids, she also pronounced "Fergie" as "Ferjie" and "Geraldo" as "Guh-raldo."

My dad and his family are from Plaquemines Parish in south Louisiana. The accent is like the NOLA "Yat" accent on steroids. In particular, they get [italic]-ir/-oi[/italic] mixed up, e.g. "erster" for [italic]oyster:[/italic] "I dunno about dem ersters. Dey taste kinda sperled."

San Francisco Bay Area He took the BARK all the way to the Embarcadero Walked down to The Castro and met one of them kinda men

R217 That sounds almost like Ermagherd Girl!

Sham-pag-nee for champagne, chower for shower, shicken for chicken

Sam Yorty, an old LA mayor also said Los Angelees.

Borned for born. "He was borned out at the farm."

Shicken sounds like it would taste better than chicken.

Stinker for fart.

Schicken? Shounds delishious!

[quote]Same here, although you would "fuel up" your car at the filling station. Actually, the attendant would do it for you, and also clean your windshield.

My grandparents always called it the "service station," whether any services were still performed there or not.

The toilet was "the commode."

I remember one time getting gas with my grandfather and he said fill it up with Ethyl. My brother and I were laughing hysterically thinking of Ethel Mertz.

"Horses-doovers" for hors d'oeuvres. I don't know if it was for real, a joke, or simply embarrassment from not knowing how to pronounce the word. Now gramma just calls them 'appetizers.'

My awful grandfather referred to Jewish people as "Sheenies", and black people as "Spades".

Luckily, he talked very little and I don't ever recall him addressing me at all.

When I was a kid, my father warned me about "queer ducks" who hung out in places like public restrooms. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“AM-inns” for almonds

“sack” for paper bag

“the [picture] show” for a movie

R232 'The picture show(s)' morphed into 'movies' which became 'films'.

Nought, instead of saying zero.

Sireen for siren.

"Sirene" is what they used to call irresistibly alluring women back in the day.

differnt

ahunnerd

bah-day-do

elnse

melk

"I never learned to.drive a stick."

For some reason my elderly father is now saying “acrosst” instead of “across.” I don’t remember him mispronouncing the same word when I was young, but maybe I just never noticed.

R197 The change had nothing to do with racism. KEEN-ya was the British pronunciation It became KEN-ya when the country became Independent.

Thanks, R197. I did think it was strange when my teacher said it was a bit racist but couldn't explain why!

In the United States, I've only heard old people from New Jersey refer to the yellow traffic light as amber.

R215 Don’t think “Elis” was derogatory for Yalies. An “Eli” was short for Elihu Yale (b. 1649), one of the original benefactors of Yale Univ. It’s just a quaint-ism, not a reference to the student body, many of whom were subject to an admissions quota anyway, if you get my drift.

My grandparents: “if you get my drift.”

My Gra-ma: “pocketbook”. Contained rolled up kleenex, tube of lipstick, coin purse, house key, and smelled like perfume. She took it with her to go food shopping at Bohack's, in Queens NY, with her collapsible grocery cart (didn’t drive).

PS but Gra-ma called it her “shopping cart.”

My dad would always call the NYC subway lines by what the initials of the corporation that used to run them.

"You take the IRT to Gran Sentral then hop on the BMT..." etc.

Do you not call the IRT, for example, the IRT any longer, r245? I lived near the west side IRT (1, 2, 3) and the east side IRT (4, 5, 6), and would sometimes catch the number 7 to switch from one to the other.

Oh, well. They call the Santa Monica Freeway "the 10" now. Nothing is ever good enough to be left alone.

[quote]"You take the IRT to Gran Sentral then hop on the BMT..."

The BMT doesn't stop at "Gran Sentral," r245. I don't believe it did in your grandfather's day, either.

My father, who got it from his father, pronounces "gums" (as in the ones next to your teeth") as "GOOMS" -- it is always very strange whenever he says it

Grandma used "creme rinse," never conditioner

R246, R246 The BMT, IND and IRT references were dropped by the Transit Authority in 1971. Since then the lines are letters and numbers. Lately, tourists are asking directions based on route colors on the map. "How do I get to the Red line?" This isn't Boston. Today the Red line is what we knew as the IRT.

r250, I called the IRT the IRT in 1975-78. The signage was not the red 1-2-3 and the green 4-5-6 of today. See map below. It's the one they handed out then.

R251, Thanks. The colors have changed since your map, but all the lines still exist with their 471 stations.

The posts about Kenya being pronounced either Ken-ya or Keen-ya sounds very much like the recent update of Key-ev to Keev.

Intermediate School

Kiev is Russian. Kyiv is Ukrainian.

"Elis" is a very common word for the Yale team in Ivy League sports reporting.

Mama's got an Icebox, daddy don't come home at all.

Mama's got a squeezebox...

Mama’s got cage meat and her mussy steams it all.

The couch was the davenport.

I have no idea why, but my grandmother pronounced "shrimp" as "srimp". She had no speech problems. But where that came from, I have no idea. But she LOVED fried srimp.

I’ve heard coupon pronounced like COW-pawn.

They did that ridiculous color nonsense with the trains in Chicago too. What used to be the Ravenswood is now the brown line. Congress is the blue line, etc. I still use the old names.

When I moved to New York in 1986, I took to calling the lines IRT, BMT and IND ... especially the IRT. I did it because I thought it sounded authentic and native ... and because I was a poseur.

R262, since you brought it up, coupons were always "kew-pons" to my grandparents.

My grandparents always called blocks - city blocks, that is - "squares". As in "the shop is three squares down F Street from Woodie's".

That's old Philadelphia usage, now long gone, but my grandparents were both native Washingtonians. Since they both said it, I assume it must have been in common use in Washington as well in the early 20th century.

R243, my mother called it a Pockabook. When Henry C. Bohack died in 1931, he had 300 stores in Brooklyn and Queens. Down to 55 when they went out of business in 1977.

My grandparents called trans women “transvestites.”

Well it wasn't my grandparent but when I worked in a hospital I had a patient who was close to 100 years old. She told me, 'dear, send in that darkey to help me get washed up'.

I was shocked and of course did not tell the tech she was called a 'darkey' but it really sounded like a throw back to the civil war. Yes, she was from the South. This was in the 90s so she wouldn't have been around for the civil war but her parents would've been, or maybe her grandparents and the expression was passed down.

R77- My grandmother went to the Beauty Parlor and used that phrase well into the 1970's.

My grandmother called a baby soother a dummy.

My great-grandmother called Swiss cheese 'Switzer', with a long I.

r270 called something a "baby soother."

R270, two young YouTubers from Britain also call it a "dummy".

Btw, the correct term is "nipple". Anyone who refuses to use that term is a prude.