Regional sayings

[hobish]

What do you call those 4-wheeled, motorized dangerous things people use to hop around and play in rural areas? I have heard tons of names.

One of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-terrain_vehicle)? Either a "quad" or an "ATV", although if someone called it a "4x4" I'd know what they meant.

I am familiar with quad and ATV. I would think a 4x4 was a truck. Three wheelers (now illegal as mentioned, but I still see some around) are three wheelers or a nugget, because it is just a little nugget, not a whole bike or quad? I dunno, but I love the term; I think it is rather South Jersey specific but i am not positive.

[baglady]

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.

Just a roll. I can't tell from that image if that's the kind of roll you'd serve with dinner and put butter on, or one you'd cut open and make a sandwich with. I might use "dinner roll" for the former, to distinguish it from the latter, but at the dinner table it'd just be "Please pass me a roll."

[Thipu1]

Here's a new one for me.

We've recently returned from England where I loaded up own a good supply of Crossword books.

Several times, in puzzles by different setters,  the term 'The Black Dog' has turned up as an synonym for 'Depression'. 

It's a vivid image that I'd never heard before. 

Is this regional or is it more wide-spread? 

[Iris]

One organisation in Australia that works to raise awareness and help those with depression and bipolar disorder is called the "Black Dog Institute". According to their website the term was coined by Winston Churchill, who used it to describe his own depression.

[Thipu1]

Thank you, Iris. 

I'm thinking that a good New Year's Resolution might to do some reading on Churchill.  after all, his Mother was a New York girl. 

[Leafy]

I have one short question so I thought I would use this old thread rather than starting a new one. My husband was watching a YouTube video about Anglo-Indian words used around the world. One of the people, a guy in Canada, stated that "Ta" used for thank you was Anglo-Indian as he had only ever heard his parents say it. We found this a bit odd as "ta" is used very commonly in Australia, though most often with young children.

Does anyone else, who is not necessarily Anglo-Indian, use "ta" for "thank you"?

[veryfluffy]

Totally normal in England everywhere I've been to use "ta." It's like a small thank-you (eg for holding the door, or when the cashier gives you your change in a shop). If you are feeling effusive, you might say "ta muchly", but I think that might be more Australian?

[Margo]

yes.It's fairly common (though I would say slightly old fashioned) British English. I've certainly come across it in novels written in the 1920s and later.

Having lived in different parts of the UK I personally have found it to be used much more in Northern England than in the South, so I've always tended to assume that it was originally a Northern expression.

I wouldn't think of it as Anglo-Indian at all. (I'd be curious to know which area of the UK he/his parents lived in. A lot of Indian and Pakistani immigrants came to Manchester and other areas in the North due to conections with the cotton trade, so if his parents (or grandparents) originally came to / lived in the North they may have picked it up as a commonly used Northern expression, rather than an Anglo-Indian one.

[Outdoor Girl]

As a Canadian, I've only ever heard 'ta' used with children too young to be able to say a full thank you.  The only adults I've heard use it have British roots and really only the older generations.

[jmarvellous]

To add to that: I've never before heard "Anglo Indian."

 It really rubs me the wrong way, but it's interesting to see and fairly obvious where it might come from.

I'm missing Texas these days, but I'm glad to be free of most of these (the only one I'd never heard used is on the final page, a quote from "Selena"--which I admit to seeing far more times than necessary, even): 14 things all Texans have said at least once

[Redneck Gravy]

To add to that: I've never before heard "Anglo Indian."

 It really rubs me the wrong way, but it's interesting to see and fairly obvious where it might come from.

I'm missing Texas these days, but I'm glad to be free of most of these (the only one I'd never heard used is on the final page, a quote from "Selena"--which I admit to seeing far more times than necessary, even): 14 things all Texans have said at least once

Anglo Indian?

I'm fixin to get some lunch ... over yonder

[lowspark]

I have lived in Houston my whole life and I've never heard of that Selena thing mentioned on that website.

Funny thing is that they left out the most commonly used word that Texans are known for: y'all.

[cwm]

Yes, but y'all isn't just Texan, it's a whole Southern-ism. When I go down to Arkansas, everyone says y'all. And it's at least a two syllable word. At least.

[lowspark]

Yeah I know it's not only Texan. I didn't mean to imply it was. Just that the name of the article is "things all Texans have said at least once" and y'all is the quintessential item on that list.

[jmarvellous]

Yeah I know it's not only Texan. I didn't mean to imply it was. Just that the name of the article is "things all Texans have said at least once" and y'all is the quintessential item on that list.

Well, it's probably true that all Texans have said "the" and "Texas" at least once, but I think they were going for ultra-Texan expressions rather than single words.

"Y'all" is something said in about 1/5 of the country at this point, I'd guess. Funnily enough, I only lived outside of Texas for my first 7 years, but I still say "you guys" instead of "y'all."