Thursday, April 17, 2008

I say to-may-toe, you say toh-mah-toh ...

Stolen from Brian at Christus Vincit - the BLOG!. This one is an official BMP original.

The object is to reveal your everyday terminology for everyday household items and what-not. You may answer with the choices given, or use your own. Remember: you're not limited to the choices given.

TAG! Any and all readers are considered IT.

1. That shiny metal stuff that you use to wrap food with:
A. Aluminum foil / B. Tin foil / C. Reynolds Wrap

I say A, and it's spelled aluminium. (You know, rhymes with gallium, indium, thallium ... Group 13 elements, people!)

2. That clear plastic stuff that is also used to wrap food with:
A. Plastic wrap / B. Saran wrap / C. Glad wrap

I say A.

3. Those things you use for facial and nasal care:
A. Tissues / B. Kleenex / C. Snot rags

Either A or B. I've never heard of C.

4. The stringy pasta that you eat with meatballs:
A. Spaghetti / B. P'sghetti / C. Noodles

B must be a regional thing as I've never heard it. If I use spaghetti noodles, then I will say A, although I've been known to use others, like linguini, fettucine, etc. Call it by its name, I'd say.

5. Those wooden sticks you see in a chips bag:
A. Pretzel / B. Prentzel / C. Sticks

Erm, I'd say A is the only name for those things. Most of my friends would want a good beer to go along with this (and not the watery stuff that passes for it, either.)

6. That mammoth trunked animal in the zoo:
A. Elephant / B. Elly-Phahnt / C. Wooly mammoth

That's easy. None of the above - this Winnie-the-Pooh fan likes to call them Heffalumps! :-)

7. The room in the house you have to use at least once a day:
A. The bathroom / B. The rest room / C. The little boys'/girls' room / D. The can

I use A. My Canadian friends call it the Washroom. My Filipino friends call it the CR (and there is a really cute story connected with this ... I will share it in another post, despite the fact that one of my uncles will probably kill me for telling! ;-) )

8. The paper you use after using the room described in question #7:
A. Toilet paper / B. Bath (or bathroom) tissue / C. Butt wipe

I use A. C is a little crude for my taste.

9. Your classification of a passenger van (full-sized or mini), besides van:
A. Car / B. Truck / C. Bus

Erm ... pardon? What else can it be classified? Sorry Brian. This was a silly question.

10. OK, finally, something relating to liturgical music - your classification of a Hammond organ:
A. Instrument / B. Appliance / C. Furniture

A Toaster Oven. Let's be specific here! If Randy had his way, it would also have a Chiffon Stop and do bagels. I say we add the cream cheese and the lox and make a party of it!

6 comments:

Brian Michael Page said...

LOL - You'll be surprised how many people in my neck of the woods call a van a car. Don't look like a car to me.
BMP

JohnF said...

1. That shiny metal stuff that you use to wrap food with:
A. Aluminum foil / B. Tin foil / C. Reynolds Wrap

A. Aluminum foil, where Aluminum is pronounced with four syllables. :-)

2. That clear plastic stuff that is also used to wrap food with:
A. Plastic wrap / B. Saran wrap / C. Glad wrap

A. Plastic wrap. I usually buy generic.

3. Those things you use for facial and nasal care:
A. Tissues / B. Kleenex / C. Snot rags

B. Kleenex.

4. The stringy pasta that you eat with meatballs:
A. Spaghetti / B. P'sghetti / C. Noodles

A. Spaghetti. I should make some this weekend.

This reminds me of a joke here in Missouri. Most people in the cities pronounce it like you hear it in Anheuser-Busch commercials, "Mizzooree". Supposedly in rural Missouri, it's pronounced "Mizzoorah", but I don't hear many real life people actually pronounce it that way. Usually when you hear someone pronounce it that way, it's a politician running for election, trying to impress on you how close they are to the roots of the state. Whatever. Anyway, the joke is, whenever the Mizzooree pronouncers want to mock the Mizzoorah pronouncers, they say they're in the mood for a nice big plate of spaghettah.

5. Those wooden sticks you see in a chips bag:
A. Pretzel / B. Prentzel / C. Sticks

Wooden sticks in a chips bag? Must be some kind of chips I've never seen. Pretzel sticks are pretzel sticks, but pretzels are twisted.

6. That mammoth trunked animal in the zoo:
A. Elephant / B. Elly-Phahnt / C. Wooly mammoth

Elephant. Though somehow I new you'd choose a Winnie-the-Pooh variation....

7. The room in the house you have to use at least once a day:
A. The bathroom / B. The rest room / C. The little boys'/girls' room / D. The can

If it's in a house and has a bathtub and/or shower, it's a bathroom. If it's out and about, it's a restroom.

For some reason this reminds me of an old SCTV skit from many years ago, where a woman kept asking for euphemisms and kept being directed to their literal interpretation, such as asking for the little girls' room and being sent to a room filled with little girls, or asking for the John and being sent to a guy named John.

8. The paper you use after using the room described in question #7:
A. Toilet paper / B. Bath (or bathroom) tissue / C. Butt wipe

Always A. Toilet paper.

9. Your classification of a passenger van (full-sized or mini), besides van:
A. Car / B. Truck / C. Bus

Nope, a van is a van, unless it's an old Volkswagen Micro-bus.

10. OK, finally, something relating to liturgical music - your classification of a Hammond organ:
A. Instrument / B. Appliance / C. Furniture

Something I know nothing about.

Oh well, we just got woken up by an earthquake at 4:36 this morning, magnitude 5.4 centered about 130 miles from here. Ah, memories of California....

Lyn F. said...

@Brian -

Erm ... okay. Always knew you New Englanders were a bit strange. (j/k) If it's a car, it must have been a large, mutant one! ;-)

@John -

Earthquake? With a magnitude 5.4??? Wow. Where were you freshman year ... I still remember crashing with a friend in the dorms and being woken up by the ground shaking (I believe it was one of the aftershocks from the Whittier earthquakes back in 1987) ... I just remembered rolling over and going back to sleep. One of the suitemates, obviously not from CA, then started knocking on all the doors, yelling, "Earthquake!!!" Later that afternoon, as we were milling 'round the suite, said suitemate started quizzing everyone if we were aware of that large earthquake that woke us up early that morning. My friend and I looked at each other, winked, and replied, "What earthquake?"

JohnF said...

They revised it down to a 5.2, though there was a 4.6 aftershock that I got to feel sitting at work around 10:15 AM.

I felt the 1987 earthquake for sure. I was on the 5th floor of Argo Hall at the time, on the top of a bunk bed, but my roommate had detached the bottom bunk for more space, so I was essentially on stilts. The bed was by the wall, and gave the wall a pretty good banging. I wrote about it for my German class, and I still remember the German word for earthquake (Erdbeben.... At least I think I remember, so don't pick on me if I'm wrong....)

Lyn F. said...

No worries, mate ... I will leave the picking to JP as he's a native German speaker. ;)

Oh, poor you - 5th floor Argo on stilts! I think the dorm that "adopted" this freshman commuter was Discovery Hall (I think that's what it was called, I really don't remember any more!), and I believe I was on the 3rd floor at the time it happened. Now I remember - the freaked out suitemate was from Alaska ... well, not really from there, but her father was stationed there, so that's where they happened to have been living at the moment. I still remember the editorial cartoon that came out in The Guardian shortly thereafter: Can you identify the native Californian and his dog? Naturally, the natives would have just rolled over and went back to sleep, mumbling, "What earthquake?" The non-natives would be sitting straight up in bed, and his dog would be hiding underneath it.

Ah, memories. I trust you survived the MO earthquake just fine?

JohnF said...

I lived in Discovery at one point, too. It's Very Disco at DiscoVery. :-)

My wife is the one freaking out the most about the earthquakes. We just have to wait for enough days to elapse to feel safe from any other large aftershocks.