Regional sayings

[jmarvellous]

I haven't lived in New England for 30 years, so I don't know if anyone still says "tonic" for soda or pop. When I was a kid "soda" meant only one thing: an ice cream soda. Coke, Pepsi etc. were tonic.

I haven't heard anyone say "tonic" when referring to soda, but then I've only been in MA for about 30 years, so... I'm sure folks still do it, though!

We also say frappe, which is a milkshake, but with icecream.

The liquor store is a packie (package store). When I went to Michigan recently, I was pretty amused by the "party stores."

ETA: I almost forgot! wicked = very (That was wicked awesome, you are wicked drunk, he's wicked cute!)

Frap or Frap-ay?

I went from "party store" MI to "liquor store" TX. Liquor store seems pretty clear.

[camlan]

I haven't lived in New England for 30 years, so I don't know if anyone still says "tonic" for soda or pop. When I was a kid "soda" meant only one thing: an ice cream soda. Coke, Pepsi etc. were tonic.

I haven't heard anyone say "tonic" when referring to soda, but then I've only been in MA for about 30 years, so... I'm sure folks still do it, though!

We also say frappe, which is a milkshake, but with icecream.

The liquor store is a packie (package store). When I went to Michigan recently, I was pretty amused by the "party stores."

ETA: I almost forgot! wicked = very (That was wicked awesome, you are wicked drunk, he's wicked cute!)

You still hear "tonic" occasionally, mostly in the Boston area and mostly from older (over 50) people. My parents were from Boston and always said "tonic." Which caused problems when we were living in Philadelphia and my high school friends reported to their parents that my dad offered them all alcohol, because they interpreted the offer of a "tonic" as meaning a "gin and tonic."

And "bubbler" or "bubbla" for water fountain is dying out as well.

"Wicked" as in "wicked good!" continues strong.

[Cat-Fu]

I haven't lived in New England for 30 years, so I don't know if anyone still says "tonic" for soda or pop. When I was a kid "soda" meant only one thing: an ice cream soda. Coke, Pepsi etc. were tonic.

I haven't heard anyone say "tonic" when referring to soda, but then I've only been in MA for about 30 years, so... I'm sure folks still do it, though!

We also say frappe, which is a milkshake, but with icecream.

The liquor store is a packie (package store). When I went to Michigan recently, I was pretty amused by the "party stores."

ETA: I almost forgot! wicked = very (That was wicked awesome, you are wicked drunk, he's wicked cute!)

Frap or Frap-ay?

I went from "party store" MI to "liquor store" TX. Liquor store seems pretty clear.

Frap.

I have heard bubbla a bit here and there, more often when I was living in central MA, though. 

[WillyNilly]

Oh yes. 

Yiddish is very common in NYC.

People of all ethnic origins enjoy bagels and almost everyone orders them with a 'schmear'.  That means a spread of butter or cream cheese.  At the very best places, a 'schmear' could weigh as much as a quarter pound.   

'I could care less?' with the appropriate shoulder shrug and hand gesture, is as likely to be heard from a person born in the Bahamas or Yemen as from a person whose parents came from Eastern Europe.

I was born & raised in NYC, 36 years now.  Both of my parents were born and raised (and still live in NYC), my grandfather was born & raised in NYC & lived here till he died.  We all went to school here, worked here, etc.

I have never, ever in my life ever heard anyone in real life ask for a "schmear" and my first job ever was working in a bagel shop (about 1 year) and I spent 4 years managing a deli in my early 20's.  Only tourists and TV personalities IME say "with a schmear".

[hobish]

"Those y'alls'?" (As in "Are those things yours (plural or singular)?") "Y'all" is so common I barely register it anymore, but "y'alls" as extra-plural or possessive is weird to me, still.

In NYC its not uncommon for people to puralize "you", as in "Yous goin' to the game later?" or "hey yous get off my stoop!"

What we called the "feeder" in Houston is called an "access road" or "frontage road" elsewhere -- the road that goes along the side of a highway for on-and-off access.

And to make it more confusing lets add another word - we call it a service road.  I have heard it referred to as an access road and might figure out feeder in context but frontage?  Never heard it and would never figure that one out...

some might even say "hang a louie"

I've heard hang a louie and bang a louie interchangeably... with a slight distinction often being to "hang a louie" is to just casually, regularly turn left "hang a louie at the next light" and bang being more urgent "d'oh!  Its this one, quick, bang a louie!"

They all sound very South-Jersey-ish, as well.
...where, FWIW, NO ONE says Joisey. Get it out of your head right now. Maybe in Brooklyn? I don't know; but no one from here actually talks like that, except on television.

[WillyNilly]

^ And few people say "New Jersey" either, at least not in New York, its just straight Jersey, or South Jersey, or North Jersey or right-across-the-river-Jersey (or AC if talking about Atlantic City).

[Pippen]

Ones I could never get used to when I was working with South Africans was their multiple concepts of 'now'. They had 'right now', 'just now' and 'now now' and they all featured at wildly different ends of the time scale. If they said something like "Oh I will get that document to you just now" it meant sometime indeterminate time in the future, right now meant something totally different and now now actually did mean now.

One from China which always cracks me up is if you get an unflattering haircut they ask you if a dog has chewed your hair

[hobish]

^ And few people say "New Jersey" either, at least not in New York, its just straight Jersey, or South Jersey, or North Jersey or right-across-the-river-Jersey (or AC if talking about Atlantic City).

You know, i never noticed that; but you're right.

[Thipu1]

I've never heard 'bubbla' or 'bubbler' for a drinking fountain in New England.  However, it's very common in WI.  The Wisconsin State Museum even sells a T-shirt with a picture of one and the legend, 'It's a bubbler'.

I will maintain that 'schmear' is still used in our area of Brooklyn. 

[baglady]

When I lived in the Boston area I don't think I ever heard "package store" except in commercials on radio or TV. Never heard "packie." We just called it the liquor store. I thought maybe "package store" was one of those advertising euphemisms, like "bathroom tissue" for "toilet paper."

The newspaper in the southern New Hampshire town where I grew up used to run ads every week for "novelty parties." Not what you're thinking! It meant bingo, not scrabble. I think it was either a law or newspaper policy that you couldn't advertise gambling -- except, of course, for the state lottery (or "Sweepstakes," as it was called then).

[mrs_deb]

The liquor store is a packie (package store).

When I moved to MA, I had a terrible time with the accent.  There's that broad "a", and the habit of removing perfectly good "r"s from some words and putting them haphazardly into other words that didn't come with them in the first place and certainly don't need them.

For example, a vendor called my office from some company named Ah-see-eh.  I  kept asking her to spell it and she just kept repeating, "ah! see! eh!  ah! see! eh!"  Finally I just wrote down "Assier" in case it was a French company.  Turns out it was RCA.  How was I supposed to know?

Then there was the woman who called from the Sharrrmut Bank.  Funny, I'd seen that bank before and it was Shawmut.  There's no "r" in Shawmut.

I then met a guy who tried to tell me a joke about three guys going into a desert - one brought food, one brought water, and the third brought a caaaaah duuuuah.  By the time I figured out he meant a car door, he was too mad to finish the joke.

And then he said we were going to stop by the "packie" on the way to a party.  Well, I knew enough Bostonian by now to know I had to insert an "r" into that word.  And he couldn't figure out why I kept asking him what a parkie was.

We didn't date much longer.

Sorry, threadjack over  .

[MERUNCC13]

If you all don't mind me chiming in from the Southeastern US.  We tend to use a lot of other words to describe some passages in life; for example, if someone has died we tend to say "he or she has passed on or passed away".  If someone needs to throw up depending on the age, we either say "upchucking" or praying to the porcelean gods".

But the phrase that some of us use the most, which covers everything from finding out that your teenage granddaughter is pregnat to your husband has run off with his secretary and you don't want to be heard using profanity or seem like you are gossiping (which we know that you are)  is "bless your/his/her heart".

[PastryGoddess]

If you all don't mind me chiming in from the Southeastern US.  We tend to use a lot of other words to describe some passages in life; for example, if someone has died we tend to say "he or she has passed on or passed away".  If someone needs to throw up depending on the age, we either say "upchucking" or praying to the porcelean gods".

But the phrase that some of us use the most, which covers everything from finding out that your teenage granddaughter is pregnat to your husband has run off with his secretary and you don't want to be heard using profanity or seem like you are gossiping (which we know that you are)  is "bless your/his/her heart".

Yes! I was born and raised in MD, but my family is from NC, AL, and LA.  So a lot of the southern sayings are in my vocabulary.

I use bless your/her/his heart all the time, mostly to take the sting out of not so nice things. 

I also use fixin' a lot as well.  Fixin' to go to the store.  Fixin' to get my hair done.  Fixin' to whoop your behind.  etc

[Sharnita]

On the subject of fixin' many of my students use fi'n.  You instruct them to do somethign or go somewhere and they respond "I'm fi'n to"

Out of curiosity, do people say bag, sack or something else?

[katycoo]

Out of curiosity, do people say bag, sack or something else?

In reference to what precisely?  To me, a 'bag' is a general word for any soft-shaped carrying device, regardless of how carried or worn. 

Sack is very specific - large, shapeless, may or may not have a closing device at the open end, but other than perhaps draw-string strings, has no handles and is grasped around the neck.  There is no interior structure such as pockets or dividers.