If you want a听 carbonated soft drink to quench your thirst, you’ll need to phrase your request wisely.听If you’re in the Northeast, ask for a soda.听In the South? Request a coke (yes, even if you want a Sprite or Dr. Pepper).听And if you’re in the Mid- or Northwest, say pop.听There are exceptions, of course. In California, Nevada and Arizona, people tend to say soda, Alaska seems to favor pop, and in Hawaii, it鈥檚 soda again. Let’s discover more surprising regionalisms!听
People from the North and West听refer to the public device that people drink water from as drinking fountains. Down South, the most popular term is听water fountain. Simple enough, right?听But if you鈥檙e from Wisconsin, Rhode Island, or eastern Massachusetts and you鈥檙e thirsty, you鈥檇 likely ask for directions to a bubbler.
Go shopping for athletic shoes, and the salesperson might ask what sport you play. But for those of us who wear rubber-soled shoes off the court, there are various generic names we use. In the Northeast and southern Florida, they are called听sneakers. Most everywhere else, people refer to them as听tennis shoes (even if you don’t play tennis). And in Chicago and Cincinnati, they’re referred听to as听gym shoes.
Technically, traffic circles, roundabouts, and rotaries are not synonymous. But if you live in New England, you鈥檒l refer to a circular intersection as a rotary. In the Midwest, it’s called a roundabout. And most everywhere else, you’d direct someone to the traffic circle.听Speaking of driving, a big road that you drive fast on is called a highway on the east coast, a freeway on the west coast, and an expressway听in places like Michigan.
People take their chocolate or multi-colored candies on top of ice cream very seriously. There are听jimmies and there are听sprinkles.听If you grew up in Boston, some other New England areas or Philadelphia, you’d call these candies jimmies. Most everyone else calls them sprinkles.
Ever hear of a chunk-floater? If you鈥檙e from Arkansas, you know it鈥檚 a heavy rain. What about a fence lifter? That鈥檚 what a heavy rain is called in the Ozarks (a highland region of the central听United States). You鈥檒l hear folks from the Gulf States, such as Alabama, Louisiana and eastern Texas, refer to a very heavy rain as a frog strangler.听And New Englanders call a very heavy rain a gully-washer. Californians don’t have to worry too much about finding a word for “a very heavy rain,” but they would probably call it a downpour听in those rare occasions when rain visits the Golden State.
Goosebumps is the name of the popular 肠丑颈濒诲谤别苍鈥檚 series by R.L. Stine. The scary stories are named for the involuntary physical response to fear (or cold), in which small bumps appear on your skin. This term is pretty widespread, though many people in the South call them chill bumps.
Have you ever mischievously covered a neighbor’s house in toilet paper? Or, perhaps you鈥檝e been the recipient of this prank, which frequently takes place on Halloween. The most common term nationwide is TP-ing. But in the Northeast, it鈥檚 typically called toilet papering, and in the South, rolling.
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