It's usually metal, sometimes plastic, it's got 4 wheels, and you push it around the store as you put your groceries in it. So what do you call this device? I'm originally from Ohio, then Texas, now New Jersey, and I've only ever known it as a "cart," "shopping cart," or occasionally a "basket." Ever since I started working at Stop & Shop (3 months after getting a Computer Science degree from UNT, hopefully this should be temporary) I've heard so many different terms for this. Most people here say "cart." But then I hear some people (one cashier and a few customers) calling it a "wagon." Then the next day a manager tells me "go get a carriage." So, as instructed, I bring these large pieces of garbage to the back in a cart, and the guy in the back room tells me to "leave the carriage here." Later on I'm bagging groceries and another manager is buying some things on her way out. I put my hand on her cart and ask "Is this a cart, a wagon, or a carriage?" She says "A cart. But I'm from North Carolina and my mom calls it a buggy. I think they say wagon in Rhode Island."
So...who says what and where?

Well, here in Alberta, Canada, I've never heard it referred to as anything other than a cart or a shopping cart.

However, now that I think of it, the stalls that the carts are returned to have signs above them saying "Buggy Corral" at Safeway... but I think that's more for novelty's sake...

Here in GA it's either a car or a buggy. It's usually the more country people who say buggy.

I work for Safeway (hopefully temporarily) here in Phoenix, AZ after I earned my A.A.S. for Network and Database Administration and Safeway calls it a "baskart", A combo basket and cart... It's even written into the store manuals they give to employees and even on the bulletin board... urgh... Well I always wanted to modify one to have an electric or gas engine (removable as reacon is coming), all terrain pneumatic wheels, a decent suspension system, and a tow apparatus to hook up to a bike... it be w00t!

And in Britain it's a shopping trolley!

They call it a 'shopping cart' in Eastern Canada too. (Gee, [Canuck-specific gag] something the West and Ontario can agree on! Somebody call Preston Manning! [/Canuck-specific gag]) I've only ever heard 'buggy' used in older books and TV shows - say circa 1960 or earlier.

'Basket', at least locally, is reserved for the literal handled plastic tote baskets you grab when you don't have a long enough list to justify a whole cart.

I've called it a shopping cart all my life.

Ditto.

Re: Preston Manning

PLEASE, kerriem, I HOPE TO GOD you don't think all us western Canadians like that guy/the Reform Alliance stuff... I can assure you that we are not all extreme right wing Alliance supporters here... although, sadly, most of us seem to be... but not me, I swear!!!

Oh, and we call the little things 'baskets' here too!

(Oops, didn't mean to get political, from now on I'll save it for the Politics board. My bad!)

In Washington state, they are shopping carts. Down in Sydney, I saw them called trolleys. In Washington state, a trolley is a train on an electric track. Go figure.

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And in Britain it's a shopping trolley!
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Or occasionally a post-modern canal based art sculpture

The smaller hand carried ones are baskets, although economists refer to both when they do "shopping basket" analyses.

PLEASE, kerriem, I HOPE TO GOD you don't think all us western Canadians like that guy/the Reform Alliance stuff...

Noooo, Dan, sorry (although I do have a couple conservative Western friends) that was just a (lameish) throwaway gag.

In some places, it's that metal thing that locks and
stalls when you cross the yellow line.

Now, here's another, related question. Most people in the US use the term "waiting in line" and that's all I've ever known. But I've discovered here that New Yorkers prefer to wait "on line" rather than in line. And I believe in the UK the expression involves the word "queue." Any other expressions we should be aware of?

I believe that rather than "get in/on line" the Brits prefer to "queue up."


Most places in the US, people travel to the beach this time of year. In NYC and Philadelphia, where such a trip would be to New Jersey's beaches they "go down the shore." (Notice that there is no "to" in that phrase.)

Interestingly, the New Jersey year-round residents have different names for these day-trippers. In the northern "shore" counties (Monmouth and Ocean), where most of the visitors are from New York and Northern New Jersey, they are called bennies. In the southern counties (Atlantic and Cape May), the visitors, mostly from from Philadelphia and the Delaware valley, are called "shoobies."

And then there are the obvious automobile and living quarters differences between the US and the UK:

trunk=boot
hood=bonnet
truck=lorrie
semi (tractor-trailer)=articulated lorrie
gas=petrol
traffic circle=roundabout
apartment=flat
elevator=lift
TV=telly

apartment=flat

Actually we use the word flat in the U.S. too, though over here it basically means a LARGE apartment.

Well, I live in Ocean County (not for very much longer) so I've heard "benny" before. On the front page of the Asbury Park Press they'll have a picture of a random beachgoer by the words "Benny or Local?" and the answer will be on some page inside.

traffic circle=roundabout

This got brought up about a year ago in one of those "This may seem dumb, but..." threads. And like I did that time, I'll go ahead and mention once again that in Boston it's called a rotary, and there's one in Addison, TX with a sign by it reading "Yield for Roundabout."

don't forget one important (potientally embarassing) difference between BE and AE:

British American
rubber = eraser
condom = rubber

There's Also:

Crisps = Chips
Chips = Fries

And:

Shopping Cart = Trolly
Trolly = Tram

So, does condom = eraser?

All I know is Marina Sirtis = "goddess"

You know, everyone already knows all about these, so why don't we instead bring up differences within countries instead of between? I don't know how it is in the UK or Australia or Canada, but over here there are several words and expressions, and for each one there is at least one city that has to be different and say something else. Like "on line," "rotary," and all the shopping cart words. To name a few:

A sidewalk is "pavement" in Philadelphia.
A rubber band is a "gumband" in Pittsburgh.
Turn signals are "directionals" in Boston and I heard a couple of New Yorkers also saying this.
Instead of "what?" people in Cincinatti say "please?" when they don't understand what someone said.

The sandwich made from cold cuts (especially Italian cold cuts) on a long roll or half a loaf of french "bagguette" bread is recognized as a "submarine sandwich" or a "sub" throughout the US, but the preferred name in Philadelphia is "hoagie"; in Massachusetts it's a "grinder"; in New York a "hero" and in Louisiana a "po'boy."

Here is a site that gathers information on just these kinds of questions (within the US).

In fact they asked the the same question that you did when you started this thread.

Other interesting differences are crayfish/crawfish/crawdad/mudbug
soda/pop/tonic/soft~drink/etc.
dust- bunnies/kittens/mice/balls
you/you~all/youse(yuz)/y'all/you'uns/you~guys/you~lot
and finally our old friend the traffic~circle/roundabout/rotary/etc

In Boston, what most of us refer to as a "Milkshake" is known as a "Frappe". A "Milkshake" is literally shaken milk.

At least it was in the late 60s, early 70s.

I've already been (pronounced "bin") to that site several times before. I've become a real accent geek in the last few months, and most of my information came from that place and this huge nationwide survey. There was once a time, not too long ago, when I could turn on a TV and everyone would sound the same. Not anymore...

In America, some people call Cola drinks, soda, some call it pop (I first heard that when I came to Denver, and I was confused as hell let me tell you), some call it soda pop. I guess it depends on where you live cause growing up in California I'd NEVEr heard it called pop before. Not in the 9 years I lived there!

I lived in Springfield, Ohio until I was 12 and everyone except my parents called it pop. My older brother says that they also say "pop" in Ontario.

"Tonic" is peculiar to the greater Boston area. My mother came from central Mass, and knew that term, but did not use it regularly.


"Frappe," also centered on Boston, was a little more widespread, and included my mother's hometown. Even though the family lived in New Jersey for several decades, my grandmother would still occassionally slip.

Pop is a fairly common term in Britain, but is mainly used by older people. A very old term for carbonated drinks was minerals, only seen on old signs on small shops which have never been repainted. soft & fizzy drinks are the most common terms but you'll never here the term soda, unless it's to describe a drink made up with soda water. I once caught a bit of an American teen comedy which had a supposedly British character, who had a non too convincing accent, & refering to a drink as a soda. It was so bad I was tempted to laugh out loud.

I think soda is the standard term in the Northeast, which includes NYC, NJ and Philly. (Terms like "the Northeast" can be pretty vague.) Some places don't even have a general word like "pop" or "soda." I don't remember any such term existing in Dallas--maybe with the mass immigration of people from all over the USA to Dallas, all the words canceled each other out.

Strangely, in Britain I don't think we have a generic term for carbonated drinks which is generally used. If anything, I guess we'd refer to them as 'fizzy drinks'; but if you were going to ask someone if they wanted a fizzy drink, you'd probably say, "D'you want a Coke?" and leave it to the other person to say, "I'd rather have a (whatever)".

Here in Georgia we tend to use coke as a generic name for any and all soda drinks. Of course since coke's world HQ is in Atlanta and you prefer Pepsi you don't say it loudly in public around here.

Here's another one, most people in the south likes sweet ice tea, while people up north have never heard of it. We've had some misunderstandings in the resturant I work at where someone said they want "regular ice tea" and mean unsweet, while those of us from Ga consider sweet to be regular and unsweet to the other one that only a few people order. My usual response after a misunderstanding like that is "y'all ain't from around here, are ya."

Here in CA if you order iced tea anywheres you get unsweet, but are almost always offered sugar or sweeteners to fix it how you like.

Brian--

Some of the big iced tea bottlers (for example Arizona) have begun marketing a southern-style "Sweet Tea" in addition to their regular sweetened and unsweeted varieties. Is this something different, or just a marketing gimmick? Or maybe it just has more (or less) sugar than the regular sweetened tea?

Proably has more sweetner. At the resturant where I work we always put more sweetner in the sweet tea on sundays for lunch because an older and more southern crowd comes in for sunday lunch after church and they will tell you that the sweet tea doesn't taste right if it's not full of sweetner.

I've heard (and used on occasion) the term softy for a soft drink, and minerals is still used on menus in restuarants - unless they're tied to a particular manufacturer, when they'll list what they have.

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I once caught a bit of an American teen comedy which had a supposedly British character, who had a non too convincing accent, & refering to a drink as a soda
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Giles did that occasionally in Buffy, although they tended to do quite well with both him and Spike in terms of "british-ness" - the one I can remember off the top of my head is in The Zeppo, where he mentions a jelly doughnut - he might have been trying to keep it simple for Buffy and Willow, or might have "gone native", but he should really have called it jam - jelly in britain is jello in the US. But I'm sure there's many occasions where a US character in an british series has used the british name for something rather than the american.

Also, US beer (especially Bud, Coors et al) is closer to what in the UK is known as lager (same as most of the european beers like Carlsberg, Heineken and so on) and is brewed from wheat IIRC, UK beer is brewed from hops (barley), and sub-divided into ale and bitter. Bitter's are, ales are usually lighter and a bit sweeter, although this can vary tremendously.


And then there's football and football, in which over paid prima-donnas sulk, whine and throw their toys out of the pram, before getting transfered somewhere else and being paid even more money and produce even less on the pitch, whilst the fans get ripped off for season tickets and repli-kit with the soon-to-be ex-players name on the back.

Decide for yourselves which version I'm describing

I guess Dallas is no longer part of the South. Me & my family just moved from Jackson, NJ to Allen, TX (a Dallas suburb) which is where we used to live 3 years ago. We had to drive through Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas to get here. Through all those southern states you could go into a restaurant and get already-sweetened tea. Then once we got into the Dallas area, no more sweet tea!

And to keep beating the dead horse of pop vs. soda, check out this site: http://www.popvssoda.com

Way back to the cart topic...

Kerriem said..
>>They call it a 'shopping cart' in Eastern
>>Canada too. (Gee, [Canuck-specific gag]
>>something the West and Ontario can agree on!
>>Somebody call Preston Manning! [/Canuck-
>>specific gag]) I've only ever heard 'buggy'
>>used in older books and TV shows - say circa
>>1960 or earlier.


Ontario is 'Eastern Canada'? What are the Maritimes? The Far-East? If that's the case, I'm glad I moved away before those awful wars started! lol