We grew up calling a sofa/couch a “Davenport”. My Mom was from Illinois, but I grew up in California. I was about 8 before I realized no one knew what I was talking about. Is it an Illinois thing???
Also “you guys” is common here in Calif. “Hella”!is definitely a No. Calif. thing fortunately, not So. Calif.
Thanks for #110 @“Cardinal Fang” That was helpful - I was just not getting this discussion, lol.
I have a question for y’all 
Where I grew up, we didn’t pronounce the “t” at the ends of words like rent. Instead it was sort of like “rin” because our e’s weren’t pronounced like “eh” either, and we ended the words with some sort of weird final stop that wasn’t at all like a hard, distinct “t” sound.
So, I’m wondering how many of you do pronounce a distinct “t” sound at the end of a word and, if so, what area of the country do you live?
Re: davenport - My great aunt had one in her parlor (small sitting room), which was off the kitchen where the icebox (refrigerator) was. She also carried a pocketbook (purse/handbag) and put bedclothes (blankets/sheets/comforter) on the bed. Mid-Michigan area.
Re: oleo - only ever heard that from my great grandmother on the other side of the family. SE Michigan.
I say pocketbook, doesn’t everyone?
I used to say pocketbook but now I just say bag. I never said purse.
I say either pocketbook or purse.
I pronounce the ending “t” in words but don’t over-pronounce it.
I say “bag” or “handbag” now but used “pocketbook” or less often “purse” for years, and growing up. Occasionally those terms will still slip out.
My grandmother said davenport – she grew up in Wisconsin, but also lived in Iowa and Illinois.
My grandmother also said davenport. She was a Norwegian immigrant who grew up in North Dakota and later lived in Minnesota.
That piece of furniture in your bedroom where you store your clothes…dresser or bureau? Its a dresser to me.
I buy my coffee in a little deli in NYC for the most part. I ask for coffee, extra light, with half and half and two splenda. If I wanted decaf, I would say decaf. At some places, the milk, etc. is out for you to prep the coffee yourself. At those places, I ask for coffee, but tell them to give me a little less to make room for it to be light.
@Mansfield - It’s a dresser unless it has an attached mirror, then it’s a bureau.
We always said pocketbook growing up, but now I usually say bag. A purse is the same as a pocketbook or a handbag.
One was a dresser (I think the short wide one) and the other (the taller one) was a chest of drawers (pronounced chester drawers).
Packy in England is a rather offensive way of referring to a Pakistani. Fag is slang for cigarette so quite a different meaning to in the US. And fanny is a rather crude reference to lady parts (I stopped dead in mid sentence when I moved to the US and was reading minutes at a quilt club when I had to read that they made fanny packs at the last meeting!)
Oh, a rubber is an eraser. Caused some misunderstanding between my new American boss and his English secretary a few decades ago.
Pavement in England means sidewalk - where I live in the US it means the road.
I’ve lived out of England for over 30 years so some if these may have changed.
^Packy is short for package in NE. It is a hold over from post Prohibition times in which you would have your bottle wrapped to be more discrete and instead of going out to buy liquor you would say that you had to buy a package of packy.
I call it a bureau.
I am loving this thread! my mom from Upper Manhattan and the Bronx used to say, “terlet” for Toilet, also- warshing machine and dungarees, LOL!
In England we have “the loo” for toilet. My Mum used to say she was going to the Jinky. I’ve never anyone else use the term - not sure where it came from.
In England, I went into a general goods/stationery store and asked for “thumb tacks.” If they had not had so many Americans in the area, they might have thought I was asking for an ancient instrument of torture. They are “drawing pins”! Also, I learned that saying “Pardon me?” (when I didn’t catch what someone had said) did not sound good to my British friends. It was supposed to be “What?”
We had a davenport, also called a couch or sofa. I think of a divan as a sofa-like object with a back that is shaped to rise higher into a corner at one end, but that curves gracefully lower toward the other end.
I use “purse.” This is apparently a no-go from some people’s comments.
My high-school English classes had a few grammar lessons that focused on rooting out German usages that had been converted directly into English. “Needs washed” and “needs cut” fit into this group.
“On accident” drives me nuts, but I think it is a lost cause to oppose it around here. I assume it’s a parallelized form of “on purpose.”
We use either ladies room or men’s room for the bathroom. My dad only called his mother, mum. Clearly a holdover from the UK.
When we went to Ireland many years ago, my husband ordered a bowl of pudding. After going back and forth to the kitchen several times, the puzzled waitress finally let us know that the pudding was a blood pudding and that people don’t order bowls of it. They also use pudding for dessert. He thought he was ordering custard.
“Could care less” drives me crazy, because it’s illogical. But I know it’s a lost cause.
I’ll go to my grave fighting “alot” and “alright” though.
I did the quiz referenced earlier and it correctly determined I speak like someone from Honolulu, Santa Rosa or Stockton. No surprise there. We have enjoyed learning new expressions from our friends’ British SIL.