Dolly vs. Trolley

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Nathan calling from Abilene, Texas, where I listen to you guys on KCU.

Excellent.

Outstanding. Glad to hear. Welcome to the show, Nathan.

Well, I’ve got an interesting question that kind of involves a travel story.

Oh, good.

I was a few years ago, I was on a business trip to London, England, and I had a trade show that I was attending.

And had a bunch of boxes that I was bringing in from the hotel that I was staying at to go to the trade show venue.

And I put them in a taxi, and I brought them to the venue, and we unloaded them on the side of the road.

And I’m trying to get them down to my exhibit space.

And so I went into the venue, and I walked up to this group of British working men who were there,

Working in the bowels of the trade center there.

And walked up to him and I said, I need a dolly.

And they looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

And one of the guys started rocking his arms back and forth and said, you want a dolly mate?

Like a toy dolly.

Like it was a doll.

And I said, no.

And they start looking at each other.

And it really was one of those two people, one people separated by a common language type of anyway.

So I looked at them and realized that I really was not communicating at all.

And I started going back through my lexicon of other euphemisms for a dolly.

And so I said, okay, I want a two-wheeler, which is a name that I’d heard used.

And they kind of looked at me and kind of heads cocked to the side.

And then I said, I want a hand truck, which is another old word that I’ve heard used, describe a dolly.

And they kind of looked at me, and I still wasn’t communicating.

And then finally I said, I want a platform with an axle, with two wheels attached to an axle, with a pole coming up the back that I can slide under some boxes and lean them back and haul them.

And at this point they look at me and they say, oh, you want a trolley?

And I said, yes, I’d like a trolley then.

And they said, go get the Yanka trolley.

And somebody went off and they got the Yanka trolley.

And I got my boxes and I took it back to them and I said, thank you.

And this was my little moment.

And so, which leads me to puzzling for a long time, where exactly this, I guess, uniquely American word, dolly, came from for something that we used to haul furniture and boxes around.

Oh, but I bet they’re still talking about the American who wanted a doll.

The yank.

The yank.

That’s nice.

Oh, Nathan.

It’s not settled in this country either, by the way.

Not at all, Nathan.

There’s not universal agreement on what those devices are called here either.

I mean, it depends on your industry.

In some industries, a dolly is a hand truck.

In other industries, a hand truck is a dolly.

I mean, I grew up with one thing where it’s like a square or rectangular board on four caster wheels.

That’s a dolly.

No handle.

Maybe a rope to pull it.

The one that you were talking about that you moved your boxes with is a hand truck.

And then you’ve got trolley, which is kind of like a cabinet on wheels or like a shelving unit on wheels, maybe with open sides.

But I know that in other industries, it’s very different.

It’s very fixed, for example, in the jargon of some unions.

They have very specific language because that language relates to what they’re permitted to do as for their duty.

So they’ve kind of written it into job descriptions and stuff.

I remember being really struck the first time I heard anybody talking about a dolly, meaning that thing that you sort of lean back and push.

I was really surprised.

Yeah, that’s never been a dolly for me, but I know that it is for other people.

Yeah, so why is it a dolly?

We don’t rock it in our arms.

No, we don’t.

You know, those Brits, by the way, they might have also responded to the word a Raleigh or a Rolly,

Because for a long time that was a word for that device as well, just depending on where you were in the country.

You know, I wonder if you’d have gone just a couple miles down the road to another hotel

And asked a similar group of workmen if they would have understood,

Because it is super local, some of this stuff, and very specific to certain trades.

The little bit of research that I did, they came back and said that Dolly is basically an American term.

This is something that we use that’s uniquely American and different from anything that the Brits would use.

Well, that’s a case of falling out of favor.

If you look it up in a historical dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary,

You will see many long variations on different devices for carting things around called dollies.

And many of them were used for a long time in the United Kingdom in mining or construction or what have you.

So maybe it remains American, but it didn’t necessarily start as American.

That’s a fun story.

I love those moments, and I’m glad that you can tell it with a bit of humor in your heart.

Oh, it was a lot of fun, actually.

It’s a great story.

I would just imagine a bunch of burly guys, like, what kind of fellow comes up to men and asks for a doll?

Yeah, so we don’t really have a good answer for the origin of Dolly.

The only thing I can think of is those three-legged television camera dollies.

I don’t know that.

I don’t know that term.

Yeah.

But there’s another example of very specific language in a particular trade or profession.

And not the same as other trades or professions.

Right.

Or maybe the whole thing was surreal and it’s a reference to Salvador.

I don’t know.

Yeah, there we go.

But maybe somebody knows.

Yeah, we’d love to hear how you use those words dolly, trolley, hand truck in your business.

Oh, and Two Wheeler, which is one I hadn’t heard before.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Nathan, thank you so much for your story and your call.

Thank you so much.

Have a good one.

Take care.

All right.

Bye-bye.