What do you call ...

[Linguoboy]

In the Mid-Atlantic English, asphalt is a general term for the material, so it could appear in a lot of contexts. Blacktop, however, is very specific to the asphalt covered play spaces found near schools or at playgrounds, ball courts, etc. I can't really think of another context for the term's use.

Growing up, we used "blacktop" for the asphalt covering on our driveway. When it needed recovering, my father "blacktopped" it. I'm not sure I really understood what "asphalt" referred to until I was older.

[zompist]

So I'm trying to work out when I call something a "present" and when I call it a "gift". Seems like I have:

birthday present
Christmas present
going-away present

I would normally prefer present in all these contexts, but only by a slight margin with the first two — birthday gift and Christmas gift are also fine, and I might use them, just not as often as the forms with present; *going-away gift, however, sounds somehow wrong.
[...]
I would actually say wedding present, and think wedding gift sounds ever so slightly odd.

I think I'd agree with these preferences. The "gift" variations don't sound wrong.

I tried Googling the variations; somewhat surprisingly, the "gift" variations won by a large margin-- e.g. "birthday present" 22.7 million results, "birthday gift" 43.1 million.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

So I'm trying to work out when I call something a "present" and when I call it a "gift". Seems like I have:

birthday present
Christmas present
going-away present

I would normally prefer present in all these contexts, but only by a slight margin with the first two — birthday gift and Christmas gift are also fine, and I might use them, just not as often as the forms with present; *going-away gift, however, sounds somehow wrong.
[...]
I would actually say wedding present, and think wedding gift sounds ever so slightly odd.

I think I'd agree with these preferences. The "gift" variations don't sound wrong.

I tried Googling the variations; somewhat surprisingly, the "gift" variations won by a large margin-- e.g. "birthday present" 22.7 million results, "birthday gift" 43.1 million.

We're probably simply dialectally similar.

[Moose-tache]

I tried Googling the variations; somewhat surprisingly, the "gift" variations won by a large margin-- e.g. "birthday present" 22.7 million results, "birthday gift" 43.1 million.

I have a theory. It seems to me that "gift" is slightly fancier, linguistically, and is overwhelmingly preferred in a commercial context. I can imagine a company sending me spam about "a special gift for our loyal customers," but not "a special present for our loyal customers." And when I repeated your google experiment, what websites appear on the first page? Most (not all) of them were websites trying to sell me something, or recommend what or where to buy something.

When I run the experiment in a non-commercial context, the results are reversed. "My favorite birthday present" gets 1.24 billion hits, while "my favorite birthday gift" gets 876 million.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I did ponder earlier that its use in marketing jargon might be the reason I tended not to prefer it. It probably at least hindered my adopting it.

[Linguoboy]

When one drinks from a shared bottle, canteen, or wineskin, the method generally accepted as "correct" (at least in the USA) is to purse one's lips to form a small spout and then make little or no contact with the rim of the vessel. Wrapping one's lips around the top of the bottle (etc.) is calling "lipping" where I come from and is considered very bad form.

Do you have a term for "lipping" (in this sense) in your dialect?

[Travis B.]

When one drinks from a shared bottle, canteen, or wineskin, the method generally accepted as "correct" (at least in the USA) is to purse one's lips to form a small spout and then make little or no contact with the rim of the vessel. Wrapping one's lips around the top of the bottle (etc.) is calling "lipping" where I come from and is considered very bad form.

Do you have a term for "lipping" (in this sense) in your dialect?

I have never heard a term for this myself.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I haven't, either.

[keenir]

In the Mid-Atlantic English, asphalt is a general term for the material, so it could appear in a lot of contexts. Blacktop, however, is very specific to the asphalt covered play spaces found near schools or at playgrounds, ball courts, etc. I can't really think of another context for the term's use.

in my 'lect (Baltimore County, MD), the blacktop was a basketball court (but not an indoor one - those had wooden floors)...and asphalt was always (or near enough) used as a synonym for the street ("park your car on the asphalt, not my driveway")

When one drinks from a shared bottle, canteen, or wineskin, the method generally accepted as "correct" (at least in the USA) is to purse one's lips to form a small spout and then make little or no contact with the rim of the vessel. Wrapping one's lips around the top of the bottle (etc.) is calling "lipping" where I come from and is considered very bad form.

Do you have a term for "lipping" (in this sense) in your dialect?

Not that I've heard, sorry.

I once had a coworker who thought such a drinking method was proof of a mouth's proficiency in sexual practices, though.

[Raphael]

What do you call the specific part of a spoon where the food actually goes when you use it to eat food? I can't think of any word or term for it myself, in either German or English.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I don't think I've ever called it anything, but if I were describing it in a piece of narration, probably the "bowl". A Google search turns up both "bowl" and "head" for this, apparently.

[hwhatting]

What do you call the specific part of a spoon where the food actually goes when you use it to eat food? I can't think of any word or term for it myself, in either German or English.

Ein Löffel besteht aus zwei Teilen, dem Stiel und der Laffe (Laffe bedeutet eigentlich die Lippe) oder auch Löffelschale, der Höhlung für die Flüssigkeit, die oft aus einem anderen Material und mit einer anderen Technik hergestellt wurde als der Stiel.
A spoon is a utensil consisting of a small shallow bowl (also known as a head), oval or round, at the end of a handle.

So for English, the words Rounin mentioned. I must admit that I never heard the word die Laffe before, while Stiel is an everyday word.

[Raphael]

Thank you both!

[alice]

You see them a lot in discussions of language change; is there a technical name for them?

Code: Select all

Input                             oinos
low vowel merger                  ainas
Verner's Law                      ainaz
WG loss of final syllables        ain
Diphthong reduction               a:n
Back vowel rasing before nasals   o:n
Replacement limb                  wo:n
Further raising                   wu:n
Vowel shortening                  wun
FOOT-STRUT split                  wʌn

[WeepingElf]

Sound change?

[Kuchigakatai]

Table with a sequence of sound changes? I've never seen a nice short technical term for these, no.

The "replacement limb" change seems the most interesting to me here, btw. Just a few days ago I saw a couple people commenting on this sound change in English, after finding some old guy (18th/19th century?) writing "in" as an equivalent of IPA [jin] (also "made" as [mɛːd]). Apparently "home" is known to have been pronounced [wʌm] by some people.

[Raphael]

Is there any specific term for the special sinks used in hair salons to wash the customers' hair? That is, the ones that have a kind of "cut-out" where the customer's head and neck are placed?

[Linguoboy]

I'd call it a "salon sink". Apparently the term "shampoo bowl" is also in use, though I wouldn't understand what that referred to without explanation.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I would probably have called it a "hair-washing basin" without looking up a word for it.

[Raphael]

Thank you!