Friday, July 21, 2006

Words have changed over the years.

My friends and I were having this discussion about how words change over time. For instance...my grandmother uses the word "dope" for any topping that we put on ice cream. Now if I said to someone that I am going to put "dope" on my ice cream they think it was some illegal drug I was topping it with. Then the older crowd sometimes call butter, "oleo". No one know why. One other thing I was thinking about is the confusion I feel when I go over to grandma's for lunch and she calls it dinner. Now I think dinner is later but she calls that supper. In my terms...it is breakfast, lunch and dinner. In her eyes it is breakfast, dinner, and then supper. She also refers to things as "tooting" and we call it farting. She calls the toilet, "the cammode" and calls underwear "pants". Over the years I have been able to understand her foreign language and I thought that she might just be the only person on the planet that says stuff like that. BUT NO...I have several friends that have 1 or more people in the family who still use these different words. I would be interested to know if any of you have any more examples of words changing over time.
(Sorry so short)

5 comments:

Sarah said...

I don't think my family calls anything too different. I mean, we drink pop, or soda. My grandma might actually have a container that says dope or oleo on it....she keeps stuff forever!!! And she's well preserved.
And I get the meals mixed up all the time....especially since Dave went on 2nd. We have dinner for lunch and lunch for dinner...talk about messing up me and our kids!! It's nice to not eat so much before bed, though....leaves room for more ice cream. :)

Big John said...

How about chunky? It ain't just for peanut butter anymore. So any updates on Josh???

Kelley said...

This is more of a phrase, but how about "Blow me down a rat hole!"? What??? I still laugh hard when I hear grandma say that.

Kim said...

Kelley...I think I heard Hazel say once that "if looks could kill, I'd be sproutin daisies!" She is a hoot and I am glad to hear that she is home.

Anonymous said...

My grandparents call their couch a Davenport and drawers( like the silverware drawer) they pronounce draws