Pocketbook

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   SmartyPensposted 11 years ago

   I find it interesting to see how different words are in use in some parts of the country and not in others, or how words fall out of use in general.
   
   All my life I have been calling handbags or purses "pocketbooks." It seems this term isn't used by a lot of people. I am originally from the East Coast. I noticed that pocketbook is being used less frequently even on the East Coast since I've grown up.
   
   I have met people from other regions of the country that don't even know what pocketbook means.
   
   Did you ever use this term/have you even heard of it?
   
   Thanks

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      mary615posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm an old southern gal, and we always called purses "pocketbooks".  I've almost stopped using that word now because people look at me like I'm nuts.  We southerners us a lot of words that people from the other parts of the US wouldn't know what we were talking about.

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         SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Mary,
         
         That's too funny - I also get those looks too when I say it. It would be intersting to know some of the words you speak of that are not used commonly elsewhere. I also noticed most people don't know what "daven" means. When I was growing up it was another word for sofa.
         
         Go figure!

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            Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I think you mean "divan" and it still means that to me - though, yes, old fashioned. 
            
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divan_(furniture)

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               SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I  mean daven as in a shorter term for davenport. I think it became a colloquialism somewhere along the line before I was born.

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      aisha91posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Really, Pocketbook means handbag or purse in your country? Nay, this is interesting, when we say pocketbook here, it means a novel. LOL...I learned something this minute.

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   Pcunixposted 11 years ago

   Even my wife says "handbag" now and we are in our sixties and life long New Englanders.

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   pstraubie48posted 11 years ago

   yes, i grew up in Virginia. and we called our purses, pocketbooks, even though they were way large and did not fit in the pocket...over time i began to call that which i carry my stuff in a purse....

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   Lisa HWposted 11 years ago

   I say either
   "handbag" or "pocketbook" (although I don't like pocketbook).  I really don't like "purse".  That one makes me think of little white gloves and the 60's.  It also sounds little-girly to me (because little girls use that word).
   
   I grew up hearing "divan" fairly frequently, as well as:
   
   piazza (instead of "porch")
   parlor (I dumped that one when I realized how weird it is)
   tonic (soda, of course - I also dumped that one from childhood)
   cellar (aka, "down cellar", which I really hate and never used myself) (dumped in favor of "basement")
   
   Another oldie and not-goodie a few people have hung onto:
   
   "At the Bendix" (instead of "at the laundromat")
   
   and this one:
   
   "The milk is in the frigidaire" (sp?) A carry-over, I guess, from the days when people called all refrigerators "frigidaires" (whether they were manufactured by "Frigidaire" or not).
   
   I'm not usually guilty of this kind of thing; but one day I must have been channeling my father, because from out of nowhere I called the "T", "the streetcar".  I don't even know where that came from!    (My childhood, I guess; and even if there weren't streetcars by then.)
   
   And while I'm at it...
   
   Everyone so often one runs into the person who says, "Not for nothin'" and then follows it with a statement that seems like it certainly  is "for something"  I don't know...   Maybe I just don't get the appropriate usage of the phrase, "not for nothin'".     I've tried analyzing that "not for nothin'" thing, and came up with that it must have originally meant something like, "it's not without a reason/purpose that.....".  But people just use it willy-nilly, like "not for nothin' but it's snowing out" (Huh?? )  Do people more than five miles outside Boston also say, "not for nothin'"?

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      SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      ... runs into the person who says, "Not for nothin'" and then follows it with a statement that seems like it certainly  is "for something" ...
      
      This makes me crack up. So true.
      
      I have heard "not for nothin'" a ridiculous amount of times. It reminds me of the characters on the Jersey Shore and people on the show Taxi - if anyone remembers it besides me.
      
      I am with you on cellar and parlor. I heard those all the time growing up.
      
      I still say cellar sometimes.

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         Lisa HWposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I guess "not for nothin'" is not just a Boston thing, then....       Too bad, because - really - it shouldn't be spread around too much, in my opinion.   
         
         The whole time I was a kid and we lived in an older, big, house; we all said, "cellar".  Then my family moved to a new house, and my mother announced, "It's called the 'living room' in this house.  People don't call this kind of living room a "parlor" - so that was the end of "parlor" for us.     (It's a good thing we moved.    )

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            couturepopcafeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The parlor was originally a small room used for private conversation while the living room was used for ordinary social use.

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            SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I am not sure which I would rather say - "There's a body in the basement." or "There's a body in the cellar." Surely just a matter of taste LOL.

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               couturepopcafeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Maybe these words began to be used interchangably. A basement would be a foundation of a house and of course we all had a wine cellar. hehe.

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      Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Much more than five miles, yes

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   couturepopcafeposted 11 years ago

   We always used the term pocket book (or at least my mother did). It's just outdated now.
   
   pocketbook - Meaning “a booklike leather folder for papers, bills, etc.” is from 1722. Meaning "a woman's purse" is from 1816
   
   Anyone from Jersey knows the unique phrase 'going down the shore' instead of going to the beach.

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      SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Goodness, well at least it was around about 200 years.

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   mary615posted 11 years ago

   OK, here's one you won't believe!  When Coco-Cola was invented years ago, it actually had cocaine in it.  Made people feel really good.  So people called Coke "dope".  We called Coke mixed with ice cream:  "sloppy dope".

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      SmartyPensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That is crazy. I think people are addicted to coca-cola today as it is!

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      couturepopcafeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's right. Coca came from the poppy plant. It was given as a 'tonic'.  The funny thing is my mother used to give us coke syrup, which she got at the neighborhood soda fountain, when we had a tummy ache. That was in the 50s. Not sure when they took the actual coke out it.

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         mary615posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Wow! She got coke syrup in the 50's.  Sounds like a "google question", huh?

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         mary615posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I just googled the question about Coke.  You're right it was used as a tonic.  Very interesting.

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            couturepopcafeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Now, I was talking about the original Coca Cola with the poppy derivative being used as a tonic. A 'pick me up'. The syrup was just the thick stuff they squirted into the glass before they filled it with seltzer, thus making a coke drink.
            
            Or else, maybe that's how mom kept us in line. Hmm.

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