V is for Vocabulary

POP QUIZ! Name these items:

  SODA? POP? COKE?

Image courtesy of Alessandro Paiva, rgbstock.com

                                  

BAG? SACK?

Image courtesy of Sanja Gjenero, rgbstock.com

SNEAKERS? TENNIS SHOES?

Image courtesy of Sanja Gjenero, rgbstock.com

FAUCET? SPIGOT? SOMETHING ELSE?

Image courtesy of Zsuzsanna Kilian, rgbstock.com

Your answers to the questions above will likely depend a lot upon where you grew up or where you now live. For example, according to the The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy, "pop" seems to be the word of choice in the Northern, Midwestern, and Western states, while "soda" is more prevalent in the Northeast and parts of California. Many Southerners, on the other hand, seem to prefer to use the word "coke."

As far as the quiz above goes, no answer is wrong. However, that doesn't mean that we won't ever run into awkward language situations here in the United States.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved from my home state of Michigan (Upper Michigan, to be exact) to western Nebraska in 1994 was that the names I'd always associated with certain objects suddenly didn't fit them anymore. I felt like I had walked into a different world when I went to the local grocery store one afternoon soon after I had arrived in town. The clerk rang up my purchases, then asked me a question I'd never heard before in the context of a store: "Would you like a sack for that?"

This is what I looked like when I heard her question:

Photo by Robert Kraft
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

(Just look at the eyes. Ignore the dog around them.)

"What?" I said. It wasn't an "I didn't hear you" what. It was more of a "what in the world are you talking about" kind of what.

"Do. You. Want. A. Sack?" She said each word slowly, as if she were speaking to someone very, very stupid. (Apparently, she was).

Slow speech notwithstanding, I was still confused. "A sack?"

"Yes. A sack." She kind of hissed the word that time, and I started to hear grumbling coming from the people in line behind me.

Suddenly--and I don't know how or why, only that it happened--the proverbial lightbulb when off and my brain comprehended what she meant. This is what I looked like at that moment:

Photo by Kim Newberg
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Don't I look wise? (Again, ignore the fur. And the whiskers. And the whole "this is a cat" thing. I know it's a cat. Just look for the essence of wise.)

"Oh, you mean a bag!" I said triumphantly, like I had cracked some kind of code. (Actually, I felt like I had cracked a code.) "Yes, I'll take one!" (Notice how overly enthusiastic I had become. I was trying to erase my earlier ignorance by turning on my bubbly charm--kind of like pop when you shake up the bottle.)

The clerk ignored me, slammed my purchases into a bag (excuse me--sack), and I left the store feeling like a stranger. In a strange land. Or something.

When I told this story to my journalism students the next week, I was met with the same blank stare I had given the clerk.

Photo by Robert Kraft
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

(That picture's just too good not to use again.)

There was silence. I stared at my students. My students stared at me. Finally, one brave young man spoke up. "Um, of course it's a sack, Ms. P. I don't get it. Why would you call it a bag?"

Clearly, we had a communication problem.

I explained to the class that the only sack I knew was in football, and by "knew" I meant I had heard some announcer say the word as I was surfing past ESPN to get to a rerun of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I had grown up calling these paper containers bags. That's what my parents called them; that's what my grandparents called them. I assumed that was what everyone called them.

Obviously, I assumed wrong.

Since that fateful day in Nebraska when my ideas about everything I thought I had known were dashed, I've come across many more examples of the country's varied vocabulary. Here in western New York, for example, those shoes pictured above are called sneakers. I grew up calling them tennis shoes. People in some parts of the country say that the water receptacle that Jack and Jill carried up the hill is called a pail; others call it a bucket. Some fry their eggs in a frying pan, and others fry them in a skillet. And in some areas of the country, water comes from a faucet, yet in other areas, it comes from a spigot

Moving from one part of the United States to the other means you almost need to learn a new language.

I know I did.



Have you noticed differences in vocabulary in various parts of the United States? If you're not from the US, have you noticed any vocabulary differences in your country?

In the game again

It's true what they say about vacations: you need one to recuperate from the one you just took. Ever since we arrived home late Saturday night, I've been unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning, and taking the kids to appointments and storytime. Yesterday I even managed to catch up on some of my writing. (Yay!) I've been busy.

And I am exhausted.

Returning home from vacation is always difficult for me. If I could, I would move back to Michigan, back to my small town with its small-town way of life. I don't dislike living in a large city--I certainly appreciate all of the opportunities living here presents to me and my family--but I miss the atmosphere of a smaller town and the sense of community and belonging that usually goes along with it.

And then there's my family. We've always been close, and it's hard to be away from them, especially when I know I can see them only once a year. I wrote a 100-words entry about this shortly after arriving back home:

I've been back in New York for only two days, yet I'm already homesick. Although I can think of many good things about living in a large city, I still miss the small town I grew up in. Mostly, though, I miss my family. Neither my husband nor I have relatives close by, and that's really a lonely feeling. I'm not the type of person who has a large circle of friends, and even though I've made one close friend since moving here--a friend I would miss so much if she weren't in my life--the loneliness doesn't subside.

But enough of the sad stuff. What I'm happy about is being back here, blogging and interacting with my online friends! It was hard to be away for so long, and I'm very glad to be back to the world of writing.

So what's up next for me and my blog? More writing and more writing about writing--just more of doing what I love.

And I can't wait.