tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post7116665428491051385..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: on/in the playgroundlynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-34300311382938813412008-05-07T07:49:00.000+01:002008-05-07T07:49:00.000+01:00The only Australian contributions to the naming of...The only Australian contributions to the naming of playground equipment that I can think of are "flying fox" (which I mentioned in an earlier comment) and "slippery dip" (BrE "slide").<BR/><BR/>Other than that, we mostly follow the British terms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-36428360503150366692007-10-31T02:53:00.000+00:002007-10-31T02:53:00.000+00:00Like Lynne, I'm a Western New Yorker. But like Kim...Like Lynne, I'm a Western New Yorker. But like Kim, I've mostly heard the inflatable bouncing apparatus called a "bounce house"<BR/><BR/>As for metal playground equipment (increasingly phased out recently in favo(u)r of boring plastic crap), I grew up calling the horizontal ladder the 'monkey bars', while the sort of hollow geodesic dome that doesn't seem to have been mentioned much in this conversation was the 'jungle gym'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-46106101164473594372007-10-01T16:17:00.000+01:002007-10-01T16:17:00.000+01:00In the Chicagoland park I played in (1960s), we mu...In the Chicagoland park I played in (1960s), we must have been singularly uncreative. We called the round platform that spun the "turn-around thing."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-6344213488766534402007-09-27T04:09:00.000+01:002007-09-27T04:09:00.000+01:00I once went back to my Massachusetts elementary sc...I once went back to my Massachusetts elementary school's playground and heard a small child refer to what my peers and I had all called a "jungle gym" as a "climbing structure." And a perfectly straight face he had, too.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-47153425016384029392007-09-20T00:25:00.000+01:002007-09-20T00:25:00.000+01:00BEING OF TWO VERY DIFFERENT PARENTAL BACKGROUNDS, ...BEING OF TWO VERY DIFFERENT PARENTAL BACKGROUNDS, FATHER : BOSTON IRISH. MOTHER: CAJUN FRENCH. WORDS IN MY HOUSE WERE MUCH COFUSED AS WHAT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE. MONKEY BARS WERE A SET OF UNEVEN BARS AS IN THE OLYMPICS. JUNGLE GYMS ARE TALL STUCTURES USED FOR CLIMBING, LIKE SCAFFOLDING PAINTERS USE.ROUNDABOUTS ARE MERRY-GO-ROUNDS,OR CIRCULAR TURNS IN A ROAD WAY.HAVING BEEN RAISED IN TEXAS ALL MY LIFE,MOST SAY I HAVE AN UNUSUAL WAY OF SPEACH, AH WELL, LIVE AND LEARN. KATHEAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-36055854050609565792007-09-19T17:47:00.000+01:002007-09-19T17:47:00.000+01:00The piece of playground equipment that has a disti...The piece of playground equipment that has a distinctive American dialectic name is the "sliding pond," a term for a slide that is unique to the greater NY metropolitan area. According to William Safire, this is a corruption of the Dutch word "bahn," meaning "track." It definitely confused folks when we moved to New Hampshire.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-65771951516564615442007-09-17T17:43:00.000+01:002007-09-17T17:43:00.000+01:00Like Bill, my childhood was spent in New England a...Like Bill, my childhood was spent in New England and we called those things moonbounces. "Moonwalk" referred to the Michael Jackson dance move (from the Thriller video, I think?) in which one moves backward while appearing to walk forward.flatlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14711270206823934186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-68906268641441593082007-09-17T16:15:00.000+01:002007-09-17T16:15:00.000+01:00Growing up in Massachusetts, I called the "play st...Growing up in Massachusetts, I called the "play structure" a Jungle Gym generally, and on the Jungly gym might be a set of Monkey Bars and a slide or two...but no swings. Anything with swings on it would have been a swingset even if it had monkey bars and slides somewhere on it. But if it was one of those things made entirely out of pipe and was in various forms, used purely for climbing and pushing people off in (in retrospect) horribly violent games of "King of the Hill" was called either monkey bars or the jungle gym.<BR/><BR/>And as for the Moonwalk/Castle Bounce, we tended to combine the two into a "Moonbounce" regardless of how it was decorated.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-70072909045042094412007-09-17T16:06:00.000+01:002007-09-17T16:06:00.000+01:00“It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other” is...“It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other” is not the same as “what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts”. Suppose opposing footballers are arguing over who was fouling whom. If the TV commentator says “it’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other” he means each was equally guilty (or equally innocent). If he says “it’s swings and roundabouts” he means that, even if the referee makes the wrong decision in this instance, he is bound to make a mistake later that favours the other side. A non-British equivalent is “It all evens out in the end”.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-50156311170453802062007-09-17T13:28:00.000+01:002007-09-17T13:28:00.000+01:00Six of one, and half a dozen of the other ... is u...Six of one, and half a dozen of the other ... is used in my BrE family.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-15700081021648584312007-09-17T11:20:00.000+01:002007-09-17T11:20:00.000+01:00I know this isn't entirely on-topic, but I was tic...I know this isn't entirely on-topic, but I was tickled to see that Ant and Dec stand in their correct order even in photos!Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10576490910177808746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-63947561985900030572007-09-17T10:07:00.000+01:002007-09-17T10:07:00.000+01:00In my American-living-in-London mind, the US equiv...In my American-living-in-London mind, the US equivalent of "swings and roundabouts" is "six of one, half a dozen of the other."<BR/><BR/>Sadly, I don't have a British informant handy, so I don't know whether that phrase is used here or not.Jillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06332056233110232454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-13144415030487910422007-09-16T22:11:00.000+01:002007-09-16T22:11:00.000+01:00Fascinating. I had no idea that "swings and rounda...Fascinating. I had no idea that "swings and roundabouts" was English.<BR/><BR/>It's the corus of a famous Danish song -- well, I think of it as famous, but I'm rather dated for my age. 60es-ish, I think it was.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-29736477278512960522007-09-16T21:30:00.000+01:002007-09-16T21:30:00.000+01:00I thought about that after I posted it, then didn'...I thought about that after I posted it, then didn't do much about it. <I>In the playground</I> is about 6 times as popular as <I>on the playground</I> on UK sites, according to Google. I'll make the change (cheatingly) now...lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-84688377457287642382007-09-16T21:25:00.000+01:002007-09-16T21:25:00.000+01:00Just noticed the post title: do American children ...Just noticed the post title: do American children play "<B>on</B> the playground"? Young Brits play "<B>in</B> the playground".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-69254895495156985672007-09-16T20:28:00.000+01:002007-09-16T20:28:00.000+01:00On the playgrounds I frequented in Chicago between...On the playgrounds I frequented in Chicago between roughly 1979 and 1988, the 'flat circular platform with railings that spins on a central axle' piece of apparatus, when present (rarely! Not many playgrounds had one, because of a spate of lawsuits when I was little), was called generally a 'spinner' or 'the rainbow spin' (because they were almost always painted bright colors, in pie-wedge style from the center).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-49231316401847738752007-09-16T20:22:00.000+01:002007-09-16T20:22:00.000+01:00Joel A. Shaver: The OED has explicitly requested e...Joel A. Shaver: The OED has explicitly requested evidence of "bouncy castle" from before 1986, and describes it as "orig. and chiefly Brit." so you may be able to help them out. [See <A HREF="http://www.oed.com/bbc-series1/list.html#bouncy " REL="nofollow">BBC Wordhunt Appeal</A> ]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-65739924903124601522007-09-16T01:00:00.000+01:002007-09-16T01:00:00.000+01:00I've had to re-publish this post three times today...I've had to re-publish this post three times today because one or the other of the photos has (<A HREF="http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftwarch.pl?080607" REL="nofollow">until recently, BrE</A>) <B>gone missing</B>. <BR/><BR/>Apologies to those of you who have received it repeatedly through your RSS/Atom feeds.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-81974233880879064462007-09-15T21:51:00.000+01:002007-09-15T21:51:00.000+01:00These days I think of 'sandbox' as a computing ter...These days I think of 'sandbox' as a computing term ( a safe place to archive viruses), but I was really posting to say that you made me watch Ant & Dec's show for the first (and probably last!) time. Good to see you and Kat with the stars!Wordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07120147558061119469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-14893607186197710312007-09-15T14:20:00.000+01:002007-09-15T14:20:00.000+01:00At my son's school playground (in Michigan), the c...At my son's school playground (in Michigan), the climbing frame/jungle gym is called a "play structure." Only the actual horizontal ladder itself is called "monkey bars." This is an important distinction, because the devilishly dangerous "zipper" (which lets children hang from a wheeled handle and quickly slide along a bar until they are stopped abruptly by a crossbar at the other end) connects to the monkey bars, but is not part of it. Given that the zipper has accounted for several broken arms that I know of, it seems useful to be able to say, "Jenny, you can play on the monkey bars, but not the zipper."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18688885165194231572007-09-15T13:03:00.000+01:002007-09-15T13:03:00.000+01:00I think moonwalk is probably a bit dated, from bef...I think <I>moonwalk</I> is probably a bit dated, from before the days when people (AmE) <B>rented</B>/(BrE) <B>hired</B> them for their children's parties. But if you grew up with the term, then you are a much younger person than I (or from a more exciting place). I didn't see my first one until I was in my teens, in the 80s.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-78758790525900897082007-09-15T11:02:00.000+01:002007-09-15T11:02:00.000+01:00I *definitely* grew up (US, Washington state) sayi...I *definitely* grew up (US, Washington state) saying 'bouncy castle'. My wife (also WA) says she hadn't heard 'bouncy castle' before arriving here (Glasgow), hadn't heard of 'moonwalk,' and didn't have a generic term for them.Joel A. Shaverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13245999265015451845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-9903380820318112492007-09-15T10:48:00.000+01:002007-09-15T10:48:00.000+01:00Thanks John C--I'd meant to mention swings and rou...Thanks John C--I'd meant to mention <I>swings and roundabouts</I>, and completely forgot about it. As I've just hinted at, one often hears it in a shortened form: <I>it's (all) swings and roundabouts</I>. I'm having a hard time believing there's not an AmE equivalent of some sort--it feels like it's on the tip of my brain... <BR/><BR/>Cameron, I have probably jumped the gun on <I>swing set</I>. My tiny poll of Southerners yesterday indicated that they didn't know/use the term, but it's not marked as AmE in the OED. I'll make an edit in the post.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-41924314097951563302007-09-15T09:12:00.000+01:002007-09-15T09:12:00.000+01:00PS that would have been at least from the early 19...PS that would have been at least from the early 1970s.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20325341951419112902007-09-15T09:11:00.000+01:002007-09-15T09:11:00.000+01:00I was surprised to see you refer to "swing set" as...I was surprised to see you refer to "swing set" as AmE. When I was a wee boy in Glasgow (the original), we had a swing set in the back garden/yard. I think AmE terms have tended to catch on quickly here since at least the 1920s, due to Glasgow's huge love affair with the cinema/movies. But I had no idea that one originated there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com