Regional sayings

[Danika]

My friend's dad had a thick Boston accent. There was a girl she was friends with named Dana Miller. He pronounced her name Daner Millah.


Do you all use the expression "pan out"? It means for plans to work out. For example "We planned to have a picnic, but it didn't pan out because it rained."

I believe it comes from using a pan in a river to collect gold. Here's a definition.

I didn't know it if was something only used in US states that had a gold rush at the end of the 1800s, like where I live, or if it's more widely used.

[Hmmmmm]

From Texas and have always used the phrase "things didn't pan out".  But I never hear it or use it in the affirmative like "our plans for the picnic did pan out".

[Outdoor Girl]

I've used it in the negative, as well.  I don't think I've ever used it in the affirmative.

[Sharnita]

I have heard it used in a question - "how did that pan out?"

[Mental Magpie]

I have heard it used in a question - "how did that pan out?"

I, too, have heard it as a question; and I've heard it in the negative. Otherwise, I don't think I've ever heard it in the affirmative.

[Thipu1]

From Texas and have always used the phrase "things didn't pan out".  But I never hear it or use it in the affirmative like "our plans for the picnic did pan out".

NYC here.  We always used 'pan out' in the negative sense.  if something went well, we might use the term 'hit pay dirt'.

'The weather was too windy so the picnic didn't pan out'.

'The weather was perfect for the picnic.  We really hit pay dirt there'.

Both are mining terms but they're not limited to gold rush areas. 

[baglady]

To me:
A dressing table has a place to sit in front of a mirror and has a few drawers for storing things like makeup and hair products.
A dresser is around 3-4 ft tall and has several vertical drawers.  A double dresser has two sets side by side.
A chest of drawers is around 5 ft tall and has multiple verticle drawers stacked above each other.
A highboy is like a chest of drawers but has legs and is more intricate.

I now have a mule chest in my bedroom which is like a double dresser but taller.

Pod to the dressing table. But as a kid, all the rest, we would have called "bureaus." Later, in my teens, we started to say "dresser," but again, dresser would have applied to everything you list. Tall dressers and short dressers.

I'm another who grew up calling them bureaus except the dressing table ... which we didn't call a dressing table. It was a vanity.

[camlan]

To me:
A dressing table has a place to sit in front of a mirror and has a few drawers for storing things like makeup and hair products.
A dresser is around 3-4 ft tall and has several vertical drawers.  A double dresser has two sets side by side.
A chest of drawers is around 5 ft tall and has multiple verticle drawers stacked above each other.
A highboy is like a chest of drawers but has legs and is more intricate.

I now have a mule chest in my bedroom which is like a double dresser but taller.

Pod to the dressing table. But as a kid, all the rest, we would have called "bureaus." Later, in my teens, we started to say "dresser," but again, dresser would have applied to everything you list. Tall dressers and short dressers.

I'm another who grew up calling them bureaus except the dressing table ... which we didn't call a dressing table. It was a vanity.

Oh, gosh, yes. I'd forgotten about the vanity. We didn't have any in our house, but my aunt, who lived in a big city and was very glamorous to my childhood eyes, had a lovely, mirrored vanity table.

I still get a little confused when someone refers to their bathroom sink/cabinet combination as a vanity. To me, a vanity is something that goes in a bedroom, not a bathroom.

[WillyNilly]

To me:
A dressing table has a place to sit in front of a mirror and has a few drawers for storing things like makeup and hair products.
A dresser is around 3-4 ft tall and has several vertical drawers.  A double dresser has two sets side by side.
A chest of drawers is around 5 ft tall and has multiple verticle drawers stacked above each other.
A highboy is like a chest of drawers but has legs and is more intricate.

I now have a mule chest in my bedroom which is like a double dresser but taller.

Pod to the dressing table. But as a kid, all the rest, we would have called "bureaus." Later, in my teens, we started to say "dresser," but again, dresser would have applied to everything you list. Tall dressers and short dressers.

I'm another who grew up calling them bureaus except the dressing table ... which we didn't call a dressing table. It was a vanity.

Yup exactly the same for me.  It was "bureau" and "vanity".  Bureau only changed to "dresser" once I got older and had cause to write the words - dresser is easier to spell and thus became the default.  I never heard the terms highboy or low boy.

A "tallboy" is not furniture at all to me, its a 16oz beer (as opposed to a standard 12oz). "Amy and I got a 6 pack of tallboys for the softball game."  Unless its a Fosters, then its an "oilcan". A 40oz beer is simply a "forty" - as in "there were a bunch of rowdy teens drinking forties in the park last night, I had to call the cops."

And I too have used/heard "pan out" as a question or a negative, but never an affirmative.

And of course drawer and door rhyme! With draw being *almost* indistinguishable from draw.

[Thipu1]

In my youth, what most people here call a 'vanity' was a 'dressing table'.  there was always some sort of bench or chair associated with it. 

What most people here call a 'bureau' was called a 'chest of drawers'.  It was about chest high and had about six drawers.  Dear Aunt Loretta, who always had her own way of saying things, called the item a 'Chester Drawers'.

A 'dresser' was something that was only about waist high.  It was considered something very modern and my family never had one. 

The bathroom combination of sink and cabinet was virtually unknown in my youth.  I assume the modern version is called a 'Vanity' because of the large mirror over the installation. 

[Hmmmmm]

In my youth, what most people here call a 'vanity' was a 'dressing table'.  there was always some sort of bench or chair associated with it. 

What most people here call a 'bureau' was called a 'chest of drawers'.  It was about chest high and had about six drawers.  Dear Aunt Loretta, who always had her own way of saying things, called the item a 'Chester Drawers'.

A 'dresser' was something that was only about waist high.  It was considered something very modern and my family never had one. 

The bathroom combination of sink and cabinet was virtually unknown in my youth.  I assume the modern version is called a 'Vanity' because of the large mirror over the installation.

I called it a chester drawer until I was 8 or so because that's what I thought I was hearing.  I rember seeing it written for the first time and thinking, well that makes so much more sense.

[katycoo]

A "tallboy" is not furniture at all to me, its a 16oz beer (as opposed to a standard 12oz). "Amy and I got a 6 pack of tallboys for the softball game."  Unless its a Fosters, then its an "oilcan". A 40oz beer is simply a "forty" - as in "there were a bunch of rowdy teens drinking forties in the park last night, I had to call the cops."

And I too have used/heard "pan out" as a question or a negative, but never an affirmative.

And of course drawer and door rhyme! With draw being *almost* indistinguishable from draw.

Why is Fosters an oilcan?

[WillyNilly]

A "tallboy" is not furniture at all to me, its a 16oz beer (as opposed to a standard 12oz). "Amy and I got a 6 pack of tallboys for the softball game."  Unless its a Fosters, then its an "oilcan". A 40oz beer is simply a "forty" - as in "there were a bunch of rowdy teens drinking forties in the park last night, I had to call the cops."

And I too have used/heard "pan out" as a question or a negative, but never an affirmative.

And of course drawer and door rhyme! With draw being *almost* indistinguishable from drawer.

Why is Fosters an oilcan?

I always assumed because the fat can resembles a can of motor oil, but honestly I don't know.  I just know if someone say "hey while you are the store could you pick me up an oilcan?" or "we were tailgating with a few oilcans" they mean a can of Foster's beer.

[emwithme]

Same for those two-wheeled things that people who walk to the store carry their groceries home in. Formerly "two-wheeled carriage," now cart. A friend calls them "blue-haired lady carts," because she associates them with older women.

Ah, the Doris* trolley

*so named for the (generally) old ladies who use them. 

All hat, no cattle.

Never heard it until I moved to Houston.

Just another way of saying a person is all talk.

One of my junior school (I was 10/11) teachers had a saying for some of the boys - that they were all mouth and no trousers.  It finally dawned on me about five years later what he meant. 

What do you guys call a bread roll?  You know, one of these

Where I grew up, they were called a "batch" - but that's pretty specific within about a 20 mile radius, apparently.

[PastryGoddess]

ha! I call them Granny carts.  I first heard the term in Chicago, where I went to college