Odd spelling...

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
Another post got me thinking about a question I had years ago. Fridge is short for refrigerator but how come there's no d in the long version? Did somebody accidentally forget the d way back when and it stuck or what? Makes you go hmmm.
 
How does Mike become short for Michael? I guess someone spelled something one way and it stuck. Like electricity flowing from + to - even though it really goes - to +
 

"Back in the day"when all pipe wrenches were "Stilson Wrench"or "monkey Wrench",half of the people called a refrigerator ice box because that's where milk had been stored for years and the other half called them Fridgidaire because that was who built many early boxes.
I bet you remember hearing it.

My 3yo granddaughter calls it a figilator :)
 
(quoted from post at 02:11:24 02/22/13) Like electricity flowing from + to - even though it really goes - to +

I hope your bull turns out gay if you get that debate going again.
:twisted:
 

Agreed.

How did Jack become the familiar version of John? To me, they seem to be two entirely different names.
 
John is Jacques in French, mispronounced as Jack by English. Names get shortened, letters changed, rhymed, etc as nicknames.Richard, Rich, Rick, Dick. Robert, Rob, Bob
 
I think perhaps it may be short for Frigidare brand that was so popular a few years ago. Don't really have a clue, but that's my guess. Keith
 
When I was a kid every refrigerator was called a (Fridgidaire)in our family anyway. We had a Philco Fridgidaire. My grand parents had Westinghouse Fridgidare.
 
low budget,

Thanks!

Richard to Rich, and Robert to Rob make sense to me. The others are strange derivatives.
 

Here are two spellings that puzzle me. How does Pizza become pizzer when you put it into the name of the place where thy make it? Pizzeria instead of Pizzaria. You launder your clothes but instead of taking them to a laundermat it is a laundromat.
 
There was a farmer of Polish descent that lived near where I grew up. His name started with G and was 13 letters long. No one could pronounce it so people just called him G13.
 
Michael:

Speaking of electricity:
What do you get when you mate AC with DC ?



Answer: A "Current" affair.
 
How bout the "Crescent" wrench. To this day I still refer to an adjustable wrench as a Crescent, whether Crescent is the brand name or not.

In industry, we were taught to refer to the companies products by their descriptive noun (adjustable wrench) not by the company trademark (Crescent) lest they loose their patent rights early.

Mark
 
Same here. I've known at least two Margarets that were called Peggy, and they couldn't explain it either.

There's a little town in Nebraska named Steinauer. To the locals it's "Steener".
 
My Grandfather and his son (my uncle) were both named Robert, however my grandfather was known as Rob and my uncle is known as Bob.
My father is named John, but on my mother’s side he is called Jack, and also on my mother’s side I had an uncle Jack whose real name was Kenneth, (figure that one out) so there was/is to Jacks neither one “real”.
 
When I was in boot camp in the Marine Corps, we had a kid in our platoon with a long, impossible Polish name.

The Drill Instructor said, "As long as you're in my platoon, your name is Smith". We had no other Smiths.

And it worked. The DI would call "Smith" and the kid would answer up. In fact, we all called him Smith.
 
Lanudromat is a contrived word invented from Laundry and Automatic. Meant to sound modern when they first were introduced.
That one I knew!
 
I have wondered that too.My father "William" was known as "Bill".My name is "Steven William".Should I be called "Steve Bill"?
 
How does Menford go to Bud? Simple, my brother could not say my name so he called me brother which later on went to Bud???????

Bud
 
(quoted from post at 09:23:54 02/22/13) Same here. I've known at least two Margarets that were called Peggy, and they couldn't explain it either.

There's a little town in Nebraska named Steinauer. To the locals it's "Steener".

That is true, I aught to know as I live there! I use the correct pronunciation when talking to strangers though. If you use the "correct" pronunciation to many locals they will have a blank look on their face and say "huh?" :lol:
 
Had a foreign exchange student from Japan. I'm sure
even HE could not spell or pronounce his name. I
called him Toyota, he smiled. Wonder I didn't get
fired!
 
Per "CRESCENT", as in Crescent wrench? I've seen 50's one with Crescent, on one side and "Diamond
Calk Horseshoe CO.-Duluth" on the other. Then
in later years, "DIAMOND,DULUTH"
Another American company, with American workers
Bites the dust..Or, are they still going?
 
My father was John, refered to as Jack.
My name is Roland, called Rollie. After 62 years some people I grew up with call me Ronnie.
 
Or the lady in the Beatles song "Rocky Racoon"- "Her name was McGill, but she called herself Lil, and everyone knew her as Nancy."

The rest of the song is just as off-the-wall.
 
(quoted from post at 10:28:29 02/22/13) When I was in boot camp in the Marine Corps, we had a kid in our platoon with a long, impossible Polish name.

The Drill Instructor said, "As long as you're in my platoon, your name is Smith". We had no other Smiths.

And it worked. The DI would call "Smith" and the kid would answer up. In fact, we all called him Smith.

The one we had in our platoon was just called "Alphabet".
 
(quoted from post at 11:24:33 02/22/13) How does Menford go to Bud? Simple, my brother could not say my name so he called me brother which later on went to Bud???????

Bud

I think "Bud" and "Butch" tend to be adopted when someone has an uncommon or unusual name.

I knew a "Marvel" and an "Ellswoth", both of whom were called "Bud".
I also knew an "Edgar" who was called "Butch".
 
I have a friend .. His last name is "Skiwruit",, (Polish descendent) as close as I can get to pronouncing it semi correctly is "Scrott"

Really gets mixed up when programed into an automatic (speak to call) dialing cell phone, when it asks you back if you want this name .

His first name is Theordore, but I don't know how that was changed to a simple Ted. No where close to being as cute as a teddy bear ...LOL. Of course,
I have to give him all the credit for being smarter than I because he can still speak polish.
 
Had a student once with an impossible to pronounce name. One day, another student looked at her and said "Can I buy a vowell?"
 
I looked up "Davenport" in the dictionary. "A large couch that can be made into a bed" It said that the name apparently came from the manufacturer. Kinda like calling all refrigerators a Kelvinator , or Frigidaire.
 
Similar things happen when you mention be-uh-trice, NE, Char-lit MI, Char-lot NC, and la-fay-et IN.

By the way, it's char-lot MI, char-lit NC, law-fiy-et IN, and be-at-rice, NE.
 
I think it must have roots in Are-can-sus,or is it Are-can-saw? Don't get that confused with Your Kansas , Their Kansas and My Kansas.

What can you expect with guys running the place for years having names like,

Mickey Dale "Mike" Bebee

Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee

James Guy "Jim" Tucker

William Jefferson Blythe III "Bill" Clinton
 
I'll add a couple.

I'm "Henry" but the family calls me "Hank". Don't know how that one works.

Pierre, SD - Dad could always get mom fired up by pronouncing it "pea-air" instead of "peer". Come to think of it, I got in trouble in 4th grade for correcting my teacher's pronunciation on that one.

Gruene and Boerne, TX - Prounounced "green" and "bernie". It took me awhile to find those on the map.
 

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