The Sheila Variations

Hahaha! Seesawing without shame. I love that!

And may I remark that you have tiny kneecaps. I always notice kneecaps, looking for others, who, like me, were given tiny kneecaps.

So you're one of those "seesaw" people! I'm on the "teeter-totter" team. It's one of those pop-vs.-soda things, isn't it? Great pic, anyway!

hahaha

Teeter-totter, huh??

American Heritage Dictionary says:

"The outdoor toy usually called a seesaw has a number of regional names, New England having the greatest variety in the smallest area. In southeast New England it is called a tilt or a tilting board. Speakers in northeast Massachusetts call it a teedle board; in the Narragansett Bay area the term changes to dandle or dandle board. Teeter or teeterboard is used more generally in the northeast United States, while teeter-totter, probably the most common term after seesaw, is used across the inland northern states and westward to the West Coast."

Hmm. Back in Indiana we always said teeter-totter, but we'd know that a seesaw was the same thing. I never heard of tilt, teedle, or dandle. And (oddly enough) a pop or soda of any kind was usually called a "Coke"!

Saint Russell - weird. I grew up in the Narragansett Bay area!

My parents are both from Massachusetts - and THOSE people refer to soda of any kind as "tonic".

Love regionalisms.

Then of course there is "bubbler" - a Rhode Island term for water fountain. I believe there are some communities in Wisconsin which also refer to water fountains as "bubblers". I remember when I first moved out of Rhode Island and asked some innocent passerby where the nearest "bubbler" was and I remember the bizarre look I was given.

One of my favorite regionalisms: people from Mass. who say "so didn't I"... which of course means "so did I"... Example, for those who have never heard it (I sure hadn't, until I moved up here): "I watched The Apprentice last night." "Oh yeah, so didn't I." I mean, WTF??

hahahahahahahahaha

"Then of course there is "bubbler" - a Rhode Island term for water fountain."

Pronounced, of course, "bubblah," as in "even the bubblah at West Lynn Creamery was wicked awesome!"

we wisconsinites [from select, prime parts of wisconsin] do indeed call it a bubbler. i've lived in minnesota since '95, when i was 8, but i still call it a bubbler, and call the beverage soda, not "pop". many fights...

Relevant and potentially interesting is this map of how people around the U.S. refer to the sugar-laden carbonated beverages. Also this listing of survey results for how people in different regions of America speak about a lot of things.

#103 on Steve's second link is a "bubbler" map. Just what you'd expect: two big clumps, and a very few scattered dots.

As a Minnesota girl, I grew up calling that sugar laden beverage category "pop". In '95, I moved to California for a couple years. There, I learned to call it "Soda". You see, I ate lunch often at a Pizza Hut buffet. The guy who ran the counter there was awesome - he ordered up my favorite pizza for the buffet when I would show up ( he thought it was nuts of me to order a personal pan pizza - the value was so much less!).

But, he would get this confused look on his face when I'd order a "pop", so just for him, I learned to call it soda. Still do - even though I'm back in Minnesota now.