13 Local Words You'll Need To Travel The U.S. (PHOTOS)

We Americans should all be talking the same by now. Television, chain stores and texting
should surely have expunged from our tongues all those quirky regionalisms.

So why are they still wearing "skips" in parts of Tennessee, "gym shoes" in Chicago and "tennies"
in Southern California, while Long Islanders wear "sneakers"?

How come a "regular coffee" on the West Coast means black but on parts of the East Coast,
notably the Northeast, it comes with cream and sugar?

And something is "wicked good (or bad)" in New England, but "larruping good (or bad)" across a
broad swath of the southern U.S., and either "goodsome" or "badsome" on the island of Ocracoke
off the Carolina coast.

Take a trip this summer around the country and listen to the ways we still talk like we're from here and not there. "Pop" versus "soda" is the classic example, of course.

Here are some more ways that we all still talk the way we talk because we're from somewhere in particular.

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You can tell your dinner guests to stick it in your gurrybutt and you won't offend.

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As long as what they're sticking are the empty shells of clams or mussels or lobsters. Gurrybutt is the name of the bowl you toss those empty shells into. "Gurry" is an old New England whaling term for fish offal. Rudyard Kipling used the word in "Captains Courageous," his 1897 novel about the Grand Banks. Kipling did part of his research for the book in the Massachusetts fishing village of Gloucester.

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As long as what they're sticking are the empty shells of clams or mussels or lobsters. Gurrybutt is the name of the bowl you toss those empty shells into. "Gurry" is an old New England whaling term for fish offal.

Rudyard Kipling used the word in "Captains Courageous," his 1897 novel about the Grand Banks. Kipling did part of his research for the book in the Massachusetts fishing village of Gloucester.

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Mim Harrison is the author of Wicked Good Words: From Johnnycakes to Jug Handles, a
Roundup of America's Regionalisms (Perigee/ Stonesong Press).

 

Comments

[Largo Lagg]

12:21 AM on 08/27/2011

That's LUSCIOUS, not lucious

[FreshwaterDrum]

04:08 PM on 08/25/2011

On one of my road trips through the south, (I think it was Alabama) I stopped at a convenience store and bought a handful of pocket-sized items, and the sweet, grandmotherly lady behind the counter asked me,

"Y'all wanna poke?"

I hesitated, with a confused look on my face.

"Poke. Wanna poke, Hon?"

My adolescent mind was racing..."Was she hitting on me? Unbelievable!" Finally, after another awkward moment she said,

"A sack! For your thangs!

"Oh! A BAG! Sorry, yes Ma'am, thank you!", I stammered, now embarrassed rather than confused.

She continued to smile sweetly as she put my thangs in a poke, and I left the store smiling, too...

[big-bad-wolf]

01:13 PM on 09/19/2011

If you were alone, the lady did NOT say "Y'all wanna poke?". "Y'all" is only used when speaking to more than one person.

[Russell Warren Waddel]

12:57 PM on 08/25/2011

When I went to New Zealand, #13 is what a milkshake actually is. Milk and some flavoring shaken up and put into a glass. If you wanted what a mileshake is actually called, you order a frappe. I believe that it's what the British call it.

[erikabwitch]

02:12 AM on 08/25/2011

Sigh. I was born and raised in Connecticut (as was nearly everyone else in my family for the past 400 years), and milkshakes DO contain ice cream. I've seen frappe appear occasionally in Mass. Most of the other stuff in the slides that's supposed to be New England slang either isn't or must be so old that it hasn't been said in decades. We do say "wicked". Alot. Usually as a synonym for "very", as in "It's wicked hot out today!" And we have "sodas" with our "grinders".

[RMS Berengaria]

12:44 AM on 08/23/2011

Here in Missouri we have the "Lake of the Ozarks", which attracts a lot of tourist from all over the country. Well, while strolling along the shops and stores around the Bagnall Dam, my Aunt and some friends where following a young couple of Lady's obviously not from Missouri or of any rural background, stop to peruse a window front which displayed a Chicken setting on her "brown" eggs in her nest. The one lady said to the other "do they still make brown eggs"?

[RMS Berengaria]

12:39 AM on 08/23/2011

My Grandmother was in New York City many years ago. She was going to eat breakfast in a restaurant there and saw Ham on the menu and ask the waitress if it was country ham? The waitress said "well is not all ham from the country"

[RMS Berengaria]

05:06 PM on 08/22/2011

Here in Missouri we use the phrase "get me a (soda) from the (ice box) and come sit on the (divan). When I was younger and people from other states came to visit and say Pop, Fridge, or Sofa or couch I thought you "aint" from Missouri!

[Karen Frazier]

06:16 AM on 08/22/2011

In Texas a Gallinipper is not a mosquito, even though it is a giant mosquito looking creature. It is actually a Crane Fly. We also can be heard calling these bugs Mosquito Hawks. They don't eat mosquitoes, nor do they bite. :)

[EricArthurBlair]

12:59 PM on 08/15/2011

If you're from Utah,, and happen to be visiting Milwaukee and you want sime "culinary water", you might ask someone to direct you to a "drinking fountain", but nobody local will understand you unless you ask for a "bubbler".

[rightasrain]

07:32 PM on 08/14/2011

Potable water is also a term used by contractors and anyone in the building trades, especially masons.

[rightasrain]

07:28 PM on 08/14/2011

Number 4 of 14 is called pickles. Why? That's okra. It may be pickled but I'll betcha it wasn't grown or eaten in Nebraska!

[RMS Berengaria]

04:54 PM on 08/22/2011

I saw that also those are in no way pickles but Okra. We grow them here in Missouri but not to my liking.

[Spartan112]

03:24 PM on 08/14/2011

Oh, one you hear sometimes in NH and Maine is "Dooryard" meaning "Driveway".

[Spartan112]

03:19 PM on 08/14/2011

Born and raised New Englander and I have never once heard the phrases "Velvet", "Dropped egg" or "Gurrybutt"...these are surely archaic in usage.

[Nolana]

08:35 AM on 08/14/2011

Here in Vermont, especially northern VT, a soft-serve ice cream cone is a "creemee".

My mom calls a particularly windy, rainy storm a "real trash-mover".

I once told a friend from California that I was "right out straight". he said "HUH?" I had to explain that I was very busy. "Down cellar" is a common enough term here, meaning, obviously, "in the basement". I wonder what my California friend would have thought if I'd said I was "right out straight down cellar" (very busy working in the basement).

[domode6]

12:54 AM on 08/14/2011

Here in Louisiana we do make groceries (other wise known as going to the store, grocery shopping) and when we get home we save them! (put the groceries up or away). We eat crayfish - craw-fish - the things you may fish with. We berl (boil) and put earl (oil) in the car or frying pan.
On a trip to Ireland several years ago I found out that the pubs had TAKE WAY or as we know it TAKE OUT FOOD!
I really enjoy hearing the different names from the different parts of the country and world!!