"We do it for George."

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

25. I had a uni professor who grew up

In and around that area between the Texas border and Shreveport. She asked if anyone knew what a buggy was. Most of the students' guesses were the buggy as in a wagon from horse and buggy, of course. A couple of them said it was a cutesie name for an insect.

We hadn't considered a third possibility: Apparently where the prof grew up, that was the term for 'shopping cart.' I guess I can see it in relation to 'horse and buggy,' so it made a certain sense. Who am I to judge, anyway? I grew up calling the same thing a trolley.

Another term that had us scratching our heads was Chester Drowrers. She wrote it out the way people there pronounced it, but the actual spelling is 'chest of drawers." Some of us were still confused, and learned that it's a term for the piece of furniture many of us know as a bureau.

Dialects and idioms are the fun part of linguistics.