Drink a Cabinet

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

This is Wendy Lemlin from San Diego.

Hi, Wendy. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Wendy.

What can we do for you?

Hi.

So I have a question about regional terms for soda fountain treats. I was recently in Rhode Island, and I was in a shop that had an old-fashioned soda fountain. And one of their offerings was chocolate or vanilla cabinets.

Now, I grew up in Massachusetts, 20 miles from where that shop was, and I had never heard of a cabinet. So I asked my friend, and he just looked at me like I was crazy, and he said, well, it’s a milkshake. And I have never, ever heard of a cabinet as milkshake. And I’ve asked many of my New England friends, and none of them had either, except for people in Rhode Island.

So is there any other place other than Rhode Island that they call a milkshake a cabinet, and why? I tried to look it up, and the only explanation that I was able to find was because it’s made in a blender, and a blender is kept in a cabinet, they call it a cabinet. But with that reasoning, why wouldn’t they call a skirt a closet?

Well, English doesn’t make sense, as we’ve said many times. But you’re right, it’s pretty much localized to Rhode Island. There are parts of southeastern Massachusetts that might use the term cabinet for a milkshake. And I believe it’s a milkshake with ice cream in it. If you don’t have ice cream.

So a frap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people call it a frap. Some people call it a velvet. But I believe that a cabinet has ice cream in it. But is pretty much confined to Rhode Island. And it’s something of a, how should I put this, a tourist, not tourist, that’s not fair. It’s something of a chamber of commerce term is what I usually call them. It’s a term that they all know that they use, and they delight that they have something that’s their own.

And it’s a very Rhode Island thing that shows up in all the tour books and the guidebooks and the kind of thing that any profile of what to do in Rhode Island is bound to mention it eventually.

Yeah, I have to admit that the one time I was in Newport, Rhode Island, I went into a drugstore, and they had a fountain there, and it said cabinets on the wall. And I had to get one, even though I wasn’t really in the mood for a milkshake, just to confirm that it was really true. You really call this a cabinet.

Yeah, so we don’t all speak the same English. I mean, you’ve kind of found a perfect example of regionalisms. We are not unified in our language. There is no one American English. There’s no one English. It never has been just one English. There’s always been more than one.

Yeah, and especially with tasty drinks. If you grow up calling it one thing, you’re ready to arm wrestle somebody who calls it something else, right?

It sounds like Wendy’s ready to arm wrestle.

Yeah. And sometimes those milkshakes with the ice cream in them are called frosts.

All right, be right back.

Yeah, by any other name, right? Wendy, thank you for your call. Hopefully we helped you some.

Thank you so much.

You did.

All right, take care now.

Take care, Wendy.

Thanks.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

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