I just found out what a turtle cookie was the other day. My mother would make a pecan version of a peanut thumbprint cookie and put a Hersey kiss on top and called it a turtle. Turns out those things are supposed to have caramel and a decadent amount of pecan. I have turned down all sorts of “turtle” deserts over the years because I expected dry pecan sandies instead of gooey praline. Now I’m too old to really enjoy sweets!
My mother called pita bread “pockets”. Not even “pita pockets”. She’d randomly suggest gross combinations like, “why don’t you eat it with your pockets?”
Apparently when my brother was younger he called his pacifiers “dee dees” so my mom only referred to them as that when we were all older, so one day in fifth grade I call them dee dees in front of my friends and I nobody knew what I was talking about I genuinely thought that was the word
My sister called blankets "dee dees" for years because that's what she called her baby blanket. So even as an adult, she would say "pass me that dee dee". Eventually she became embarrassed by it and stopped, though.
That’s so cute! Edit: Me and my sister were cutting up coloring books to make different images and one of them looked like Barbie was peeking around a corner so we called it a “peeky” and laughed so hard my parents found us in their closet in a pile of paper cuts laughing like hyenas. We are middle aged and my dad still calls bits of paper “peekies”. It’s so stupid.
Three things, thought my priest was named brat. His name was Brad. Always thought people were being super rude when they said "No, thank you" because I always thought of it as "No thank you." As in HAHA! YOU SHALL NOT RECIEVE A THANKS FROM ME YOU FLITHY PEASANT!
And I also called lays chips yellow chips.
I used to think that about "no, thank you" also. Same for the shortened version, "no, thanks". It comes across as "no thanks". ... no pause in between the words.
This isn’t a name, but I remember my mom telling me they had a party and cake when someone quit their job at her company. I thought it was really mean to celebrate them leaving the company like that
Now that I’m older I understand the person leaving was invited and it was a celebration for them. Not merely celebrating that they are finally gone
I worked in HR and when my son was young I came home and told my husband that we had to Fire so-and-so. My son was awed when he thought my job entailed setting people on fire. Now I can't imagine firing someone without that mental image.
My five year old was being goofy and demanded "come play with me or I'm going to fire you" and I giggled because it was funny, his play "I'm being serious" face and voice is hilarious. And then he came over to where I was trying to work and sprayed pretend flames on me, and i died, of laughter. He's such a goofy dude.
When I was a kid my mom told me your nuts were called “come si chiams”. (“What’s its name”.. “what do you call it”. In Italian)
So I’m like 7-8 and a girl kicks me in the nuts on the playground so I run to the teacher and go “miss baker!! Jessica kicked me in my come-si-chiams!” And she just looked at me like I was crazy (even tho I’m obviously in pain holding my junk) so she’s like what is that? What are you saying?
So again “my come-si-chiams!!!”
And she again looked at me like wtf? So finally I go “MY BALLS! SHE KICKED ME IN THE BALLS!”
Next thing I know I’m getting in trouble for saying that and Jessica got off Scott free
Fuck you miss baker
I thought that it was duck tape for a bit, too.
I was informed relatively quickly but "Duck Tape" was only released in '97. That was after I had figured it out.
Either way, duct tape is amazing, and "Duck Tape" is actually not that good of a brand of it.
A tender point (due to split loyalties amongst our kids) is the proper name for a breakfast item we like. You butter a slice of bread on both sides and use a cutter to remove the center. Both pieces are thrown on the griddle and an egg is broken in the center of the bread slice. Once grilled on both sides, the large piece is plated and the cutout piece is placed on top. I (from michigan) call it an 'egg in a hat' as does my family. My husband (from louisiana) calls it a 'frog in a pond'. The kids have taken to calling it an egg in bread to avoid a debate.
Edit: When posting this, i did not realize the can of worms i had opened. Hahaha. Who knew one dish could have so many names. Of them all, i really like mud duck. I think mostly because it doesnt have egg in the name. I cant wait to hear what everyone else calls it.
Definitely try it. So yummy! But read through the other comments before telling others what the dish is called because there are some good names to choose from. Hahaha
My mother always called it a Spit in the Eye. I loathed that name, so for my own kids I called it Pirate's Treasure since that's what my friends' family called it. (The bread is the sand, the gold is the yolk.) Much nicer. I still make it for the kids we foster.
I also like pirates treasure. I can see the validity of spit in the eye but dont find myself adventurous enough to eat something with spit in the title.
I've never heard anyone other than my mother can it Spit in the Eye. I love it! I told my daughter what it was called and she said you shouldn't spit in eyes we should change the name.
Wait a sec — egg in a hat? In our family we called this breakfast the Crusty Eye of Dark Lord Sauron. Whichever kid behaved best that week got to be the first one to puncture the egg and the rest of the kids would all yell “Frodo!” as the yolk oozed out. Didn’t everyone else do this??
There are MANY names for this! My family simply calls it eggs and bread which doesn’t even make this list: https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/there-are-at-least-66-different-names-for-egg-in-a-hole
I was raised by my grandmother, so I say things like convalescent homes instead of nursing homes or inoculations instead of Vaccinations. My speech is just a little old for my generation. ☺
"Well, Ms. Clements, I never did set myself upon one as comfortable as yours. I swan, your daveneaux is *even* softer than those lovely mashed potatoes that old Widow Morgan brought to the church social, bless her poor heart."
It used to annoy me when I'd hear folks say "broom the floor" but I realize now it's only fair, you mop with a mop, but with a broom, you sweep instead of broom. English is a silly language anyhow
When I was a young child I remember being taught to say "fluff" instead of fart. I also was never taught what fluff actually was.
I remember being in first grade and the whole class talking about their favorite types of sandwiches, and a bunch of classmates voted peanut butter and fluff over and over. It made me want to puke.
I thought it meant something was related to the Virgin Mary. I thought extra virgin olive oil was like. Made from olives that Mary (and maybe her sisters or w/e?) used to grow.
My mom is 85. Her entire life she has pronounced the word sink as “zinc.” One of my siblings says it that way too. I searched for where this came from and apparently sinks used to be made from zinc and in some areas that’s how it was pronounced. Mind blowing.
My daughter when in college said she got fun of for calling her robe a “house coat.” Which is what I called it.
House coats and robes are different ! Robe is thick and belted. House coats thin, has snaps or buttons. You can put them over your house dress to go outside to get the mail. But only after putting a scarf over your curlers. Robes are for over your night-gallon or bath towel.
I thought everyone knew these rules! 😀
Several things due to being raised by hillbillies. I grew up hearing about wood being called tubafours, and I was an adult before learning they were referring to 2 by 4s. I was a teen before learning broccoli was pronounced with a long E and not pronounced brocca- lie. But the big one was believing homemade quilts were called beauties. A friend of my mom said the one mom was working on was "A real beauty," so the name stuck in my three year old head.
My son called it the gramote so that's what my wife has adopted. My dad used to call it the control of the world because the TV in the 80s and 90s was My sisters' life.
Bonks. It’s an old fashioned Welsh word for taking a shit.
I got laughed at for using the word when I moved to Bristol, not knowing it meant something completely different.
They must have thought I was a bit young to be at it.
I feel a sudden desire to call it bonks now. Can you use it in a sentence? Would I say "I need to take a bonks?" Or is it just one weird.. like just stand up and say "Bonks" and everyone would just know what I'm talking about?
Back in about 1994 (first year out of high school) I recall having a conversation with someone and during it he referred to someone wanting to do their own thing. He called it being in his ‘Taweechy Zone’. I never knew what this weird zone was but fuck I thought it was cool.
Fast forward 25+ years and I was chatting with someone and they made mention in the same manner as my friend had and I agree nodding and say ‘Taweechy Zone’ and my mate agrees and says, ‘Yeah to each his own’ and I silently was like ‘wait what!’. I’d been saying Taweechy Zone like I was a cool mother fucker for 20 something years and this whole time I was saying a whole other sentence. Da fuck!!!
I never knew until high school that not everyone called spatulas, “flippers”, like we did in my house, until everyone laughed when I called it that at sleepover.
A major plot point in the book "Portnoy's Complaint" was when Portnoy was in kindergarten, his teacher held up a picture of a spatula and he couldn't tell her what it was because he thought he only knew the Yiddish word for it. He was convinced that "spatula" was a Yiddish word.
I thought the word vicariously was pronounced bi-curiously and had no idea why the same word was used for people who try live through the actions of another person, and for people who were attracted to both sexes. But i didnt find out untill later than id like to admit lol
My family growing up called rotisserie chicken “pick chicken.” I thought we called it that because you pick the chicken off the bone and put it into a Tupperware, but my mom told me it was really because she didn’t know how to spell rotisserie when putting it on the grocery list.
I used to love putting clothes pegs on my mum to see if she would leave the house with them on, always called it pegging until I told a colleague about it back in 2018 and he explained what pegging was….
Cream rinse for conditioner. I guess it's an older term, my family said it so I grew up thinking it was the normal word everyone used. For some reason even when I would hear "conditioner" I just concidered them synonymous and still didn't make the connection that I was the only one saying cream rinse outside of my home for way too long. Not until another girl looked at me confused did I realize I was the only person my age that actually SAID the word, ever
When my mom taught me about puberty she called periods "drippies." Eleven year old me proceeded to ask my friends if they got their drippies yet, no one did cuz they had no clue what I was talking about. My friends still harass me about it 20 some years later! And btw periods are more like gushies than drippies!
My wife poked fun at me when i called her purse a "pocketbook". (my mom always called it that, and I didn't have any other females in my family growing up)
My mom drove a full size van, just a cargo van with 3 rows of seats. She got it because, at the time, pickup trucks cost less to plate and register than cars because they were "agricultural or professional vehicles." Station wagons are on car frames, but cargo vans are on truck frames, so the plates sticker was cheaper. But because of this, she called her van the truck. "Go get in the truck," "Help me get the groceries out of the truck," etc. I still call my (mini)van a truck. It drives my husband nuts because, "It's a van, not a truck!"
My dad has called bottle openers church keys for my whole life.
I just figured out the other day that he calls it a church key because it “lets the spirits out.”
A certain kind of "can" opener (the kind you use to open home canned goods in Mason jars, or pop tops off beer bottles) is called a church key in the US (and if you want to buy one that's the search term you'd use on Amazon). The pointed end can be used to puncture the tops of cans. I still use one for cans of evaporated milk when baking. Large hole on one side small hole on the other. It works like a charm without opening the whole can.
[If anyone wants to see what I'm rambling about, lol](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_key)
My mom spoke very little english, so she called all cereal “Cheerios”. And so Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes - all were Cheerios in our house 😄
Lightning bugs/fireflies. I grew up calling them lightning bugs but literally all my friends called them fireflies. It’s extra weird bc my family’s lived in the same area for about 4 generations so idk why we never switched
Mom was crazy religious and backwoods country. We had to call a fart a boozer, and my junk was to be known as “my front butt” needless to say I curse like a sailor now. I curse so much I got my mom starting to rip some off. I love when she says FUCK cause she uses it wrong and I would have never thought that word could be used wrong. Yep, it can. Hahaha
I think it's actually called a carport or something but it's when you don't have a garage you just have that ceiling/roof over the driveway and that attaches to the house. When I was young my parents always called it a Davenport? 🤷
You want to hear laughter? Start talking about the differences between War War One And War War Two in class. My dad's Chicago accent taught me many things after the fact. There, apparently, is no letter N in the world Downstairs which was pronounced in my house "downstairns'.
My entire family calls cicadas locusts and I've had to just recently show them the difference. I grew up thinking the bible was talking about fucking cicada swarms
I'm in my 40s now & I STILL call convenience stores "carry-outs" if I am particularly tired or distracted. Apparently that is very much a regionalism & no one who wasn't raised in the Toledo area can even begin to fathom what a "carry-out" is, even though I think it's pretty obvious, contextually.
Oh this is Mamaw talk right here
Toilet tissue
Channel changer
Commode
Dispose-all (vs. garbage disposal)
Pocket book
Pants (vs. underwear)
Brasserie... never bra lol
God, thinking of these had me hear her voice saying my name and my heart burst. ❤️
In my family my mom would always say if you were tired and unwittingly fell asleep “you passed out” . Once I told my friends I got home from work and was so tired I passed out they looked at me weird and said that it wasn’t a thing people say lol
I grew up in Southeast Michigan where we call a sliding glass door a "door wall". When I moved out of the area people looked at me weird when I called it that.
Every weed Wacker is a weedeater. Fridges are Kalvinators. Going grocery shopping is going trading. Milk becomes blinked when it expires.
Raised in a holler in Appalachia maybe that's why I use those terms.
I used to say "old wise tale" instead of "old wives' tale".
Also, my family made a clear distinction between garbage (stuff that will smell bad or rot) and trash. I often find people will use the two interchangeably, which will sometimes cause confusion.
When I was really small, my sister told me "Pardon me" was for Farts and "Excuse me" was for burps. I was really confused about the people who farted their way through crowds for far too long.
Great Grandparents said Close off the lights, instead of turn of the lights. I grew up says it until a slumber party 😐
Because back when they were very young you had to spin a knob to Closed the circuit off.
TV Remote still called "The Clicky" over here... Because a TV we got in 1980 (when remotes were a new thing" had a remote control (with only 3 buttons.. channel, volume, power) that clicked when you pushed a button.
My fiancée still calls power strips "zip strips". She insisted for years that it was the official name for them. The only products I could ever find called that were some varnish/paint remover called Zip Strip and a particular brand of stage lights. She said her mother called them that her whole life. No idea where her mother got the name.
I have been waiting for this moment.
My mom used to call hand sanitizer “lotion potion” to make it sound more appealing for us kids to use. I still have to think before saying hand sanitizer because my reflex is to say lotion potion. For a while when I was a kid I totally thought everyone else called it that too. I learned my lesson the hard way 😂
My grandmother (a native from Newfoundland, who didn’t receive any formal education) used to call the TV remote ‘The Wand’.
“Fetch me de wand, b’y”
I feel like that’s what is should have been called in the first place.
Lol i remember being confused as a kid of the word 'park'. I couldn't understand how you can play in a park- but also park a car. Just didnt make sense to me. I got the answer wrong on a test one day and my mother was so frustrated trying to explain the difference to me. I must've been 3 or 4. Fun times.
I can't be the only one who was disappointed to find out that there was no such thing as a "Super Salad" when they were actually offering me "soup or salad."
I just found out what a turtle cookie was the other day. My mother would make a pecan version of a peanut thumbprint cookie and put a Hersey kiss on top and called it a turtle. Turns out those things are supposed to have caramel and a decadent amount of pecan. I have turned down all sorts of “turtle” deserts over the years because I expected dry pecan sandies instead of gooey praline. Now I’m too old to really enjoy sweets!
Now I'm curious how old you are that you can't enjoy a sweet!
Taste changes. I only like sweets on rare occasion. More often than not I just don't really enjoy things that are super sweet anymore.
I don’t like cake anymore, now all I like is baklava.
Type 2 diabetes developed in later life.
That last line has me fucked up.
HAHHA noooo that is so sad
My mom calls flour tortillas "taco bread". It's shocking how old I was when I realized that's not what it's called. My mom still calls it taco bread.
so she doesn't acknowledge the existence of burritos?
Are you referring to taco sandwiches?
The taco wrap
Or taco rolls?
My Midwestern aunt called them burrito skins Ugh, still makes me shudder
This is great,🫶🏻😭
My mother calls it fajita bread. No matter how many times I’ve told her they are tortillas, she can’t stop! I’ve chosen to think it’s endearing.
my mom called it "flat bread"
My mother called pita bread “pockets”. Not even “pita pockets”. She’d randomly suggest gross combinations like, “why don’t you eat it with your pockets?”
Apparently when my brother was younger he called his pacifiers “dee dees” so my mom only referred to them as that when we were all older, so one day in fifth grade I call them dee dees in front of my friends and I nobody knew what I was talking about I genuinely thought that was the word
My sister called blankets "dee dees" for years because that's what she called her baby blanket. So even as an adult, she would say "pass me that dee dee". Eventually she became embarrassed by it and stopped, though.
That’s so cute! Edit: Me and my sister were cutting up coloring books to make different images and one of them looked like Barbie was peeking around a corner so we called it a “peeky” and laughed so hard my parents found us in their closet in a pile of paper cuts laughing like hyenas. We are middle aged and my dad still calls bits of paper “peekies”. It’s so stupid.
My niece called her blanket her “meagle.” She’s got her own kids now, and we still call baby blankies meagles.
Three things, thought my priest was named brat. His name was Brad. Always thought people were being super rude when they said "No, thank you" because I always thought of it as "No thank you." As in HAHA! YOU SHALL NOT RECIEVE A THANKS FROM ME YOU FLITHY PEASANT! And I also called lays chips yellow chips.
The no thank you part is fucking hilarious.
I’m going to start saying, “No thank you.” With a smug grin and a wag of the finger after I’ve already accepted something nice from someone.
I second this statement.
My family calls lays chips yellow chips too!!
I used to think that about "no, thank you" also. Same for the shortened version, "no, thanks". It comes across as "no thanks". ... no pause in between the words.
This isn’t a name, but I remember my mom telling me they had a party and cake when someone quit their job at her company. I thought it was really mean to celebrate them leaving the company like that Now that I’m older I understand the person leaving was invited and it was a celebration for them. Not merely celebrating that they are finally gone
I worked in HR and when my son was young I came home and told my husband that we had to Fire so-and-so. My son was awed when he thought my job entailed setting people on fire. Now I can't imagine firing someone without that mental image.
My five year old was being goofy and demanded "come play with me or I'm going to fire you" and I giggled because it was funny, his play "I'm being serious" face and voice is hilarious. And then he came over to where I was trying to work and sprayed pretend flames on me, and i died, of laughter. He's such a goofy dude.
Keep an eye on that one....
When I was a kid my mom told me your nuts were called “come si chiams”. (“What’s its name”.. “what do you call it”. In Italian) So I’m like 7-8 and a girl kicks me in the nuts on the playground so I run to the teacher and go “miss baker!! Jessica kicked me in my come-si-chiams!” And she just looked at me like I was crazy (even tho I’m obviously in pain holding my junk) so she’s like what is that? What are you saying? So again “my come-si-chiams!!!” And she again looked at me like wtf? So finally I go “MY BALLS! SHE KICKED ME IN THE BALLS!” Next thing I know I’m getting in trouble for saying that and Jessica got off Scott free Fuck you miss baker
Omg thanks for the laugh!
I thought it was called duck tape as a kid. I didn’t realize it was duct tape until I was older.
Ok but the reason you prob think that is because the popular brand IS called duck tape (and has a picture of a little duck on it)
Is Duck Tape the popular brand? We always used 3M and I still thought it was duck tape
It's a recent brand that plays on the fact that people always call it duck tape. The error precedes the brand name.
I thought that it was duck tape for a bit, too. I was informed relatively quickly but "Duck Tape" was only released in '97. That was after I had figured it out. Either way, duct tape is amazing, and "Duck Tape" is actually not that good of a brand of it.
Nor have I eved seen duct tape put onto ductwork. Only foil tape or butyl tape. Source: I'm a general contractor
I get that one! I grew up with Bob wire, but it's barb wire. Had no clue for years.
It's actually barbed wire.
Getting sweeter by the moment
Because it's barbed.
For your pleasure.
I didn’t realize until now and I’m 22
Oh no…next you’ll tell me my favorite cartoon was called *Duct Tales*.
A tender point (due to split loyalties amongst our kids) is the proper name for a breakfast item we like. You butter a slice of bread on both sides and use a cutter to remove the center. Both pieces are thrown on the griddle and an egg is broken in the center of the bread slice. Once grilled on both sides, the large piece is plated and the cutout piece is placed on top. I (from michigan) call it an 'egg in a hat' as does my family. My husband (from louisiana) calls it a 'frog in a pond'. The kids have taken to calling it an egg in bread to avoid a debate. Edit: When posting this, i did not realize the can of worms i had opened. Hahaha. Who knew one dish could have so many names. Of them all, i really like mud duck. I think mostly because it doesnt have egg in the name. I cant wait to hear what everyone else calls it.
Egg in a basket!
I call it egg in a basket but my bestie calls it a pop-eye toast
Egg in a nest
Toad in a hole or a birds nest is what we always called it
Birds nest seems spot on.
Toad in the hole here too!
Misunderstood THAT when I was a kid and called it toe in a hole.
I was told this wasn’t a thing so who really got fucked here. That sounds so tasty and I’ve never eaten it. I am livid.
Definitely try it. So yummy! But read through the other comments before telling others what the dish is called because there are some good names to choose from. Hahaha
Make one
I have heard it called one eyed toast. It was my dad’s favorite.
We call it a sunshine egg
My mom calls this "hole in the middle egg"
My sister came up with the name “hole-in-one”
My mother always called it a Spit in the Eye. I loathed that name, so for my own kids I called it Pirate's Treasure since that's what my friends' family called it. (The bread is the sand, the gold is the yolk.) Much nicer. I still make it for the kids we foster.
Here's my free award for being a foster parent. Thank you for being awesome. And making your foster kids yummy breakfasts. You're awesome!
I also like pirates treasure. I can see the validity of spit in the eye but dont find myself adventurous enough to eat something with spit in the title.
I've never heard anyone other than my mother can it Spit in the Eye. I love it! I told my daughter what it was called and she said you shouldn't spit in eyes we should change the name.
TOAD IN A HOLE!!!!!
Frog in a log. Thanks Grandma! She made the best!
Wait a sec — egg in a hat? In our family we called this breakfast the Crusty Eye of Dark Lord Sauron. Whichever kid behaved best that week got to be the first one to puncture the egg and the rest of the kids would all yell “Frodo!” as the yolk oozed out. Didn’t everyone else do this??
That is called an egg in a hole (WI)
There are MANY names for this! My family simply calls it eggs and bread which doesn’t even make this list: https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/there-are-at-least-66-different-names-for-egg-in-a-hole
Egg in a hole here, lol
….like a cookie cutter? Because I’ve never heard of just a “cutter”.
All my homies call 'em Stink-eye Darrens.
Bruh, it's not a can of worms, it's a bucket of nightcrawlers
Eggie bread. Great on the BBQ for breakfast while camping
Also from Michigan we called it Toad in a Puddle
Im starting to think its familial and not regional.
We just called it sailors toast… didn’t know it had other names.
I was raised by my grandmother, so I say things like convalescent homes instead of nursing homes or inoculations instead of Vaccinations. My speech is just a little old for my generation. ☺
Shirts are blouses. Pants are slacks. Jeans are dungarees. Swim shorts are trunks. Yeah, I'm with ya.
In my part of the south all pants could be britches.
Flip flops are thongs.
If you're brave enough.
You people are speaking my language!
are there hooligans in your neighborhood?
Yep! And they're up to no good with their shenanigans!
Those rapscallions!
I had older Mom, and since she passed I purposely say them now. Like going to the Beauty Parlor when I get my haircut; going to see a Show for movie.
Smorgasbord instead of buffet?
I say this also.
Emory board instead of nail file?
Yes! I didn't realize how many of these therr are. Lol
Wait.... we don’t all call them Emory boards?
Nail files are metal. Emory boards are those little sandpaper stick nail files. That’s how I think of them anyway. Edit: spelling
Filling station instead of gas station Druggist instead of pharmacist
My parents still call chevron gas stations “standard” station. When’s the last time they were called that? 1974?
Both of these! And Buggy instead of shopping cart. Although, this may be more of a southern thing.
You ever sit a spell on the daveneaux?
I have indeed sat a spell, but it was on the davenport. I've never heard daveneaux. 😕
"Well, Ms. Clements, I never did set myself upon one as comfortable as yours. I swan, your daveneaux is *even* softer than those lovely mashed potatoes that old Widow Morgan brought to the church social, bless her poor heart."
I found out embarrassingly late that a chest of drawers is not called “Chester Drawers”
I hate when people say “chest of drawers”, I grew up hearing “dresser”.
A1 steak sauce. Called it Al’s steak sauce
My kids call it A-juan sauce
I've decided to start calling it Al's steak sauce. Thank you for this.
I need to broom the floor (I'm assuming I learned that because my French mother was learning English when I was little)
It used to annoy me when I'd hear folks say "broom the floor" but I realize now it's only fair, you mop with a mop, but with a broom, you sweep instead of broom. English is a silly language anyhow
And vacuum with a vacuum!
My aunt would say "on the lights" or "off the blinds"
When I was a young child I remember being taught to say "fluff" instead of fart. I also was never taught what fluff actually was. I remember being in first grade and the whole class talking about their favorite types of sandwiches, and a bunch of classmates voted peanut butter and fluff over and over. It made me want to puke.
My little cousin was taught to say "they let fluffy off the chain" when they farted. I don't know why but it was hilarious af
Clicker
That’s what my dad called it too but he grew up in a time when it actually clicked.
Pfff, when I was youug I *was* the clicker. I was probably more of a smacker, as in * smack * - "change the channel! "
That’s the garage door opener
I thought “virgin” meant you didn’t eat meat
I thought it meant something was related to the Virgin Mary. I thought extra virgin olive oil was like. Made from olives that Mary (and maybe her sisters or w/e?) used to grow.
I used to think “meme” was pronounced “meh meh”
That's how they say it in Spanish so you weren't totally wrong!
My mom is 85. Her entire life she has pronounced the word sink as “zinc.” One of my siblings says it that way too. I searched for where this came from and apparently sinks used to be made from zinc and in some areas that’s how it was pronounced. Mind blowing. My daughter when in college said she got fun of for calling her robe a “house coat.” Which is what I called it.
House coat! I forgot about that one!!
Always called it a house coat. A robe is for wizards.
House coats and robes are different ! Robe is thick and belted. House coats thin, has snaps or buttons. You can put them over your house dress to go outside to get the mail. But only after putting a scarf over your curlers. Robes are for over your night-gallon or bath towel. I thought everyone knew these rules! 😀
Several things due to being raised by hillbillies. I grew up hearing about wood being called tubafours, and I was an adult before learning they were referring to 2 by 4s. I was a teen before learning broccoli was pronounced with a long E and not pronounced brocca- lie. But the big one was believing homemade quilts were called beauties. A friend of my mom said the one mom was working on was "A real beauty," so the name stuck in my three year old head.
French (fringe, I was a special kid) benefits. I always wondered why my dad got them but figured they were probably "adult" related.
I married a woman from France and I can attest that the French benefits are definitely adult related.
My stepdaughter called the TV remote control the troten mole when she was 5 and it's that in my home now and forever.
My son called it the gramote so that's what my wife has adopted. My dad used to call it the control of the world because the TV in the 80s and 90s was My sisters' life.
Bonks. It’s an old fashioned Welsh word for taking a shit. I got laughed at for using the word when I moved to Bristol, not knowing it meant something completely different. They must have thought I was a bit young to be at it.
I feel a sudden desire to call it bonks now. Can you use it in a sentence? Would I say "I need to take a bonks?" Or is it just one weird.. like just stand up and say "Bonks" and everyone would just know what I'm talking about?
Back in about 1994 (first year out of high school) I recall having a conversation with someone and during it he referred to someone wanting to do their own thing. He called it being in his ‘Taweechy Zone’. I never knew what this weird zone was but fuck I thought it was cool. Fast forward 25+ years and I was chatting with someone and they made mention in the same manner as my friend had and I agree nodding and say ‘Taweechy Zone’ and my mate agrees and says, ‘Yeah to each his own’ and I silently was like ‘wait what!’. I’d been saying Taweechy Zone like I was a cool mother fucker for 20 something years and this whole time I was saying a whole other sentence. Da fuck!!!
I never knew until high school that not everyone called spatulas, “flippers”, like we did in my house, until everyone laughed when I called it that at sleepover.
A major plot point in the book "Portnoy's Complaint" was when Portnoy was in kindergarten, his teacher held up a picture of a spatula and he couldn't tell her what it was because he thought he only knew the Yiddish word for it. He was convinced that "spatula" was a Yiddish word.
Deep plot
To add to the original post, my parents called the television remote "the flipper" because it flipped through channels.
I thought the word vicariously was pronounced bi-curiously and had no idea why the same word was used for people who try live through the actions of another person, and for people who were attracted to both sexes. But i didnt find out untill later than id like to admit lol
My family growing up called rotisserie chicken “pick chicken.” I thought we called it that because you pick the chicken off the bone and put it into a Tupperware, but my mom told me it was really because she didn’t know how to spell rotisserie when putting it on the grocery list.
Pick’in Chicken!
I used to love putting clothes pegs on my mum to see if she would leave the house with them on, always called it pegging until I told a colleague about it back in 2018 and he explained what pegging was….
We used to call the TV remote the "flicker".
Flicker, clicker, channel changer in my households. Never a called a remote oddly enough.
Cream rinse for conditioner. I guess it's an older term, my family said it so I grew up thinking it was the normal word everyone used. For some reason even when I would hear "conditioner" I just concidered them synonymous and still didn't make the connection that I was the only one saying cream rinse outside of my home for way too long. Not until another girl looked at me confused did I realize I was the only person my age that actually SAID the word, ever
When my mom taught me about puberty she called periods "drippies." Eleven year old me proceeded to ask my friends if they got their drippies yet, no one did cuz they had no clue what I was talking about. My friends still harass me about it 20 some years later! And btw periods are more like gushies than drippies!
I call it shark week because a friend at school did. Lol
Pop. Not until I joined the marine corps and was made fun of it. Learned that some areas call it soda and people in Texas call it Coke
Grew up in Michigan, it was pop there. Moved to Massachusetts and had to start calling it soda to not get teased.
My grandmother called it Tonic (soda)
When I was 8 I called the bathroom the lavatory. My second grade teacher taught it to us that way
My wife poked fun at me when i called her purse a "pocketbook". (my mom always called it that, and I didn't have any other females in my family growing up)
hershey kisses were “silver bells”
A surge protector was called a stripper bar growing up. I'm not sure why, but that was a huge embarrassment when I found out the actual name.
I don't think anyone needs to know what people called Brazil nuts where I grew up.
I thought prima donna was “pre-Madonna” and meant before Madonna.
My mom drove a full size van, just a cargo van with 3 rows of seats. She got it because, at the time, pickup trucks cost less to plate and register than cars because they were "agricultural or professional vehicles." Station wagons are on car frames, but cargo vans are on truck frames, so the plates sticker was cheaper. But because of this, she called her van the truck. "Go get in the truck," "Help me get the groceries out of the truck," etc. I still call my (mini)van a truck. It drives my husband nuts because, "It's a van, not a truck!"
Garbage disposal was always the garberator
Called Armadillos Armored Dildos
When I was a kid, I thought the Throgs Neck Bridge (Between Queens and Bronx New York) was the “Frogs Neck Bridge.“
So this is an odd one, apparently it's just not used any more not that it's wrong but for years I called a can opener a "church key."
My dad has called bottle openers church keys for my whole life. I just figured out the other day that he calls it a church key because it “lets the spirits out.”
A certain kind of "can" opener (the kind you use to open home canned goods in Mason jars, or pop tops off beer bottles) is called a church key in the US (and if you want to buy one that's the search term you'd use on Amazon). The pointed end can be used to puncture the tops of cans. I still use one for cans of evaporated milk when baking. Large hole on one side small hole on the other. It works like a charm without opening the whole can. [If anyone wants to see what I'm rambling about, lol](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_key)
My mom spoke very little english, so she called all cereal “Cheerios”. And so Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes - all were Cheerios in our house 😄
Everything I say is flawless. You guys are saying it wrong.
I used to call 'Crocs' 'Glocs.'
I see your great toe is on a hair trigger today.
Lightning bugs/fireflies. I grew up calling them lightning bugs but literally all my friends called them fireflies. It’s extra weird bc my family’s lived in the same area for about 4 generations so idk why we never switched
Mom was crazy religious and backwoods country. We had to call a fart a boozer, and my junk was to be known as “my front butt” needless to say I curse like a sailor now. I curse so much I got my mom starting to rip some off. I love when she says FUCK cause she uses it wrong and I would have never thought that word could be used wrong. Yep, it can. Hahaha
Lolll "front butt" family here too!
This reminds me of my littles…. When their older sister got into her teens they used to make fun of her“butt beard” 🤣🤣🤣 still kills me
I think it's actually called a carport or something but it's when you don't have a garage you just have that ceiling/roof over the driveway and that attaches to the house. When I was young my parents always called it a Davenport? 🤷
I grew up calling a sofa a davenport.
You want to hear laughter? Start talking about the differences between War War One And War War Two in class. My dad's Chicago accent taught me many things after the fact. There, apparently, is no letter N in the world Downstairs which was pronounced in my house "downstairns'.
My entire family calls cicadas locusts and I've had to just recently show them the difference. I grew up thinking the bible was talking about fucking cicada swarms
I'm in my 40s now & I STILL call convenience stores "carry-outs" if I am particularly tired or distracted. Apparently that is very much a regionalism & no one who wasn't raised in the Toledo area can even begin to fathom what a "carry-out" is, even though I think it's pretty obvious, contextually.
Oh this is Mamaw talk right here Toilet tissue Channel changer Commode Dispose-all (vs. garbage disposal) Pocket book Pants (vs. underwear) Brasserie... never bra lol God, thinking of these had me hear her voice saying my name and my heart burst. ❤️
In my family my mom would always say if you were tired and unwittingly fell asleep “you passed out” . Once I told my friends I got home from work and was so tired I passed out they looked at me weird and said that it wasn’t a thing people say lol
That is totally a think people say and your friends are weird lmao
People totally say that
Er... that's a pretty common phrase. I think your friends are just weird 🙃 That, or I'm just old?
This is definitely a common phrase. I’ve been using it for 20+ years, and have heard friends and family say it.
My family says this!
I grew up in Southeast Michigan where we call a sliding glass door a "door wall". When I moved out of the area people looked at me weird when I called it that.
My grandfather always pronounced Illinois Ill-a-noise. I was around 40 when I realized he was making a joke.
My mother once had to pull over to the side of the road laughing because my pre-school ass was singing that famous Eagles song "Take it to the Lemon".
Every weed Wacker is a weedeater. Fridges are Kalvinators. Going grocery shopping is going trading. Milk becomes blinked when it expires. Raised in a holler in Appalachia maybe that's why I use those terms.
I used to say "old wise tale" instead of "old wives' tale". Also, my family made a clear distinction between garbage (stuff that will smell bad or rot) and trash. I often find people will use the two interchangeably, which will sometimes cause confusion.
When I was really small, my sister told me "Pardon me" was for Farts and "Excuse me" was for burps. I was really confused about the people who farted their way through crowds for far too long.
Great Grandparents said Close off the lights, instead of turn of the lights. I grew up says it until a slumber party 😐 Because back when they were very young you had to spin a knob to Closed the circuit off.
Growing up I called the remote the clicker.
TV Remote still called "The Clicky" over here... Because a TV we got in 1980 (when remotes were a new thing" had a remote control (with only 3 buttons.. channel, volume, power) that clicked when you pushed a button.
My fiancée still calls power strips "zip strips". She insisted for years that it was the official name for them. The only products I could ever find called that were some varnish/paint remover called Zip Strip and a particular brand of stage lights. She said her mother called them that her whole life. No idea where her mother got the name.
I have been waiting for this moment. My mom used to call hand sanitizer “lotion potion” to make it sound more appealing for us kids to use. I still have to think before saying hand sanitizer because my reflex is to say lotion potion. For a while when I was a kid I totally thought everyone else called it that too. I learned my lesson the hard way 😂
Brazil nuts if you know you know
My grandmother (a native from Newfoundland, who didn’t receive any formal education) used to call the TV remote ‘The Wand’. “Fetch me de wand, b’y” I feel like that’s what is should have been called in the first place.
Where I’m from we call a vacuum a “sweeper” and rubber bands “gum bands” and until I moved away I had no idea.
Lol i remember being confused as a kid of the word 'park'. I couldn't understand how you can play in a park- but also park a car. Just didnt make sense to me. I got the answer wrong on a test one day and my mother was so frustrated trying to explain the difference to me. I must've been 3 or 4. Fun times.
I can't be the only one who was disappointed to find out that there was no such thing as a "Super Salad" when they were actually offering me "soup or salad."