An old American friend, Lord Affectation (I've got other less flattering names for him too), has moved to Kent and informed me that "The British call bicycles push irons!" I said, "Your English friends are pushing your leg." Most English people call them bicycles, just like the rest of the English-speaking world. But as the photo (taken near a bike rack on campus) shows, he's partly right. Some people do call them push bikes, including The Gardener (Better Half's Sister's Better Half--BH just called him a young fogey). It's a little old-fashioned, but it succeeds in distinguishing them from motorbikes. AmE sometimes uses pedal bike for this purpose, but bicycle would be more usual. Or just a sign saying No M/C.The OED has push bicycle and push cycle as well as push bike, which they label as 'informal.' Myself, I've only heard push bike, but push bicycle is around on the web, as well as push tricycle and push unicycle. The OED does not have push iron, but the web holds a small number of examples, some of them in lists of Wigan dialect words. Wigan, it should be noted, is nowhere near Kent.
Of course, BrE has another push-vehicle, the push-chair, known in AmE as a stroller. Related is the pram, short for perambulator, known in AmE as a baby carriage.
Another strange term I've noticed used mainly by rail companies is "cycles". As in "Cycles are not allowed on this or any other train". I don't know why they don't just say bicycles, unless they are trying to include tricycles and unicycles (quadcycles? quincycles??) as well.
ReplyDeleteWell, I suppose they do want to include unicycles and tricycles too, although it's much less likely that commuters would bring them on the train.
ReplyDeleteBoth bike and cycle are well-known and -used clippings of bicycle in AmE, and I remember when I was a child wondering why we had the both of them. Bike can be used to mean bicycle or motorbike, but to me, cycle isn't a clipping of motorcycle, just bicycle, though I note that cycletrader.com exists for the sale of motorcycles and related motori{s/z}ed transport, not bicycles.
Surely nobody has prams or push-chairs any more? Any self-respecting mother has a baby buggy, which to my untrained eye looks like simply a push-chair with bigger wheels (and, sometimes, one fewer of them) and the inability to fold it up when you get on the bus.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they do want to include unicycles and tricycles too, it sounds like they want to exclude them. (Sorry, couldn't resist it.)
ReplyDeletePresumably, it is not UK rail companies who say "Cycles are not allowed...etc", as I think they have always made a virtue of the fact that cycles are allowed, free of charge: see, for example, GNER's advice on cycles.
I agree that bike can mean bicycle or motorbike, but a cycle is just a bicycle.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the bike is ridden by a biker it is a motorbike; if the same person also rides a non-motori{s/z}ed bike, s/he is then a cyclist.
It is UK rail (AmE: railway) companies that say cycles are not allowed. For instance, Southern trains allow only folding cycles at peak times. And yes, they say cycles. This followed the replacement of the old trains with the swish new ones--the old ones had a carriage (AmE: car) for cycles, etc. and the new ones have space for about two bicycles next to the disabled toilet (AmE: restroom).
ReplyDeleteOf course, I meant that the rail(way) companies include unicycles and tricycles in the meaning of cycle, rather than including them on their trains, but you knew that Strawman...
Back to Simon's comments. I've noticed that the Swedes (perhaps other continentals too?) are really into prams--they have really nice ones where the top comes off to be a travel cot (AmE: crib). Not so in the UK, indeed.
ReplyDeleteBaby buggy has come in for things like the Bugaboo, but even those who sell them still call them pushchairs.
I have to point out that Europeans have Railways, but Americans have Railroads. All in the spirit of things, you understand!
ReplyDeleteI am losing it...(my American intuition, that is).
ReplyDeleteI knew rail company sounded off, so was looking for what it should be. I think my block is related to the fact that in the US there's a state monopoly on passenger rail (at least so far as those of us from non-commuter train areas are concerned) and so one would just say Amtrak. Railroad company doesn't sound right at all. Perhaps I should just stick with train.
I always suspect that when someone logs on as 'anonymous' to correct me, it must be someone I know. A colleague? I'm tempted to disallow anonymous comments--would that make me right more often? :)
'Buggy' isn't a new word, it was there way before those massive three-wheeler things; it's been around at least since I was pushed around in one in the early 80s (and probably some way before, I imagine).
ReplyDeleteThe OED has baby buggy as American, but their examples are pretty old (1890-1934).
ReplyDeleteAhem, that collapsible 4 wheeled vehicle one pushes ones' child around in is known as a "stroller" in AmE.
ReplyDeleteIn my grandmother's day it was a large wobbly contraption that was called a "baby carriage".
Sorry but I've never heard a human refer to a bicycle as a cycle.
I have never heard an American refer to a motorcycle as a motorbike. On the other hand, biker only refers to riders of motorcycles and only those who ride bicycles are referred to as cyclists. That's clear, right?
Karen, you seem to be agreeing with me--so I'm not sure about the 'ahem'. (or were you disagreeing with the OED? They have proof!)Stroller=push-chair and pram=baby carriage. And no, people don't use them much anymore in the US/UK, as Simon and I discuss above. Some people do use pram more generally to include push-chairs. I was certainly pushed around in a baby carriage in the 1960s, but there are other terms, like buggy that may have been more common in other parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteMotorbike is in the AHD as referring to any light motorcycle, and that's how I've heard it used in the US, and used it myself. Better Half claims that it's used more generally in the UK, but I'm not sure I'd trust him on that (since he's not too interested in motori{s/z}ed vehicles of any sort). But I put it in bold in the entry even though it's not technically a dialectal word because I do think you hear it more here than in the US.
I think biker can sometimes refer to bicyclists, though it usually refers to motorcyclists (in leather!). For instance, there are lots of instances on the web of mountain biker.
...but then again there are reasons to feel that mountain biker does not contain biker. I.e. it contains mountain bike plus -er, rather than mountain + bike-r.
ReplyDeleteWhile/Whilst in the UK it would be a shopping trolley.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the conversation, Hoss.
"pushbike" seems to me to belong to my father's generation. Dad was born in 1910.
ReplyDeleteNow for the somewhat peripheral Australian perspective. A 'bike' is anything with 2 wheels, motorised or not. A 'cycle' I have never heard in reference to a vehicle, but certainly 'to cycle' is to operate specifically a bicycle. A 'motorbike' is (legally) any motorised 2-wheeler (a crash taught me this), but folk classification sees it as any two-wheeled motorised vehicle in which some part of the motorbike separates the legs. If no such separation occurs, you have a 'motor-scooter'. A 'Harley' is only ever a Harley, to suggest otherwise is akin to blasphemy. A 'low-rider', or sometimes 'cruiser' is a class of motorbike of which a Harley is a member. A 'Chopper' may be any low-rider that has been customised (raised handlebars, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI recall the term "pedal cycle" from some Australian licensing authority - local police? - that referred only to "treadlies" 8-)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm here via Lanuage Hat who mentioned you the other day. I have spent the last several hours in your archives voraciously devouring the linguistic repartee. You are now on my daily 'check list' with LH, Frizzylogic and Wikipedia. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteFor those interested entho[logic][graphic]ly; born Scotland (Dundee, or nearby) 1947, arrived Aust. 1952. Dialect? Aust. I guess, but I lengthen my 'a' just for effect 8-)
Welcome, Murray! Thanks for the kind words...
ReplyDelete"The OED has baby buggy as American, but their examples are pretty old (1890-1934)."
ReplyDeleteI've certainly heard them called that in the US, though not so much recently. I'll note that "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" has about 23.7 kGhits (quoted search), so it's not completely deprecated.
Is it just me or does "Push Bikes Only" invite the response "what's wrong with riding them?"
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I thought, electric dragon. I would have thought that meant you should not be riding your bike, you should get off it and walk alongside it. As in a pedestrian area, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw a posting from an American on an Internet mailing list, referring to an exhibition at which "strollers were not permitted", my first thought was that visitors were obliged to walk through it quickly!
ReplyDeleteKate (UK)
A few years late here, but as you've just linked back to it: from a UK club cyclist born and bred's perspective, "pushbike" was always taken as pejorative. I've never heard or seen "pushiron", but "iron" to refer to a bike was fairly common in the 60s and 70s (as far back as I go) but less so now: "I rode the club 10 [-mile time trial] on my track iron this week".
ReplyDeleteA related American/British distinction is that traditionally "road bike" in the UK specifically meant a fully fledged road racing machine, by contrast with a track bike (proto-fixie) or tourer, while in the USA it seems mainly to be contrastive with mountain bike, and thus includes tourers and anything with narrow|skinny ty|ires.
British and American cycling jargon developed very separately until the last 30 years, with many differences in names of parts and so on; much of this has been eroded since, in particular, the introduction of mountain bikes and the dominance of Japanese manufacturers who supply parts with American English documentation. Usages like "seatpost", "cleats", "clinchers" are all still a bit alien to me (but have steadily replaced seat pins/pillars, shoeplates and HPs/high pressures, despite my misgivings).
The UK traffic laws (and other regulations) refer to "pedal cycles" passim, specifically not bicycles mainly because there is a small but dedicated tradition of trike riders hereabouts. Unicycles don't really count, though, and the continental four-wheel multi-rider seaside pedal car that I know as "a cuistax" (which is probably a Belgicism in French) aren't often seen here either.
One other American (pretty obsolete, I assume) usage that comes across as odd is the use of "cyclist" to mean "motorcyclist" - the working title for The Wild One was "The Cyclists' Raid".
The USA certainly has railways. Here in Virginia, one of the two big freight rail companies is the Norfolk Southern Railway (one of the biggest in the country). The timetables of the various U.S. railroads (the more common term) used to be compiled in the Official Railway Guide. I belong to the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons (a nonprofit volunteer advocacy group), and our local commuter trains are called Virginia Railway Express, a name (with a logo) borrowed from the erstwhile Railway Express Agency, a company that shipped packages by rail and delivered them locally by truck. And "biker" can mean one who bicycles or one who motorcycles, though the former is a more recent (say, the last 20 years) usage.
ReplyDelete