Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:02:51 -0400

From: Elizabeth Martinez MARTINEZE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COFC.EDU

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



For some reason which is not clear to anybody I continually refer to the

shopping vehicle in grocery stores as a "carriage." When people in the

midwest questioned this I told them I assumed I learned it in NY, but on

further checking no NYers I know use it, nor does anyone in my family from

NY. So where did I get it? I always thought it must be an idiotisme (is

that the word in French?) but this mention of calling it a "buggy" leads me

to mention "carriage," in case anybody else has collected the term.



Dennis (idiot savant) B

--

Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



this doesn't sound unfamiliar to me (and i've lived in both places),

but i'm wondering if it's by association with "baby carriage", which

is a very similar thing, and which shopping carts are often used as.



lynne





______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand fax: 27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050 South Africa



"Language without meaning is meaningless." --Roman Jakobson

Both these terms sound familiar to me too. I grew up in NY City (Queens)

and I remember the term "shopping cart" (no abbreviations, i.e., cart) in

certain contexts, such as "Go get a shopping cart"; but I remember using

"carriage" in other contexts:"Get in the carriage" or "I want to get in the carriage