Very cool ongoing US English Dialect Survey going on. Register and let folks know how pronouciations and idioms vary around the country.
I found two things fascinating:
1. I realize that I pronounce some thing differently now than I did when I was growing up.
2. There’s an amazing array of idioms for some common things. E.g.,
74. What do you call the little gray creature (that looks like an insect but is actually a crustacean) that rolls up into a ball when you touch it?
a) pill bug
b) doodle bug
c) potato bug
d) roly poly
e) sow bug
f) basketball bug
g) twiddle bug
h) roll-up bug
i) wood louse
j) millipede
k) centipede
l) I know what this creature is, but have no word for it
m) I have no idea what this creature is
n) other:
I grew up using (e) (and having an odd mental conflation with soy sauce), but I hear (a) a lot, too, and some of the others — and it isn’t always clear with words of this sort when other folks do have different names for them. I mean, how often do you discuss sow bugs with your friends, fergoshsakes.
(One place where you do run across these sorts of differences is, of all place, children’s books — which makes sense, I guess, since they often are describing the world around them to new eyes.)
Cool stuff. And there’s maps for each question’s answers, too.
Cool! So Dave, do I get a royalty payment of some sort due to your post title? 🙂
Justin calls them Roly Polies, which has to be from somewhere other than me, because I don’t call them anything.
Saw this at another site……but, you were the one who prompted me to go do the survey.
Damn — I usually put “with apologies to Adam” whenever I use that title.
Roly Poly’s! I haven’t seen one in years and years. I guess they can’t take the heat down here in Floreeeda.
roly poly, sow bug and potato bug are what I grew up calling them….but now everyone in my neighborhood seems to think a potato bug is this awful other ugly creature…..I have already taught my 2 year old they are potato bugs! What now??
I was just talking about the names people call ‘wood lice’ last night and then in trying to discover the personal names of an odd eighties entertainment act, a group of fat old ladies in leotards called ‘The Roly-Polies’ I came across this site and am thrilled! Talk about coincidence. I have another suggestion for you. My wife, from Somerset, UK, calls these crustaceans ‘Grandfathers’.