See-Saw vs. Teeter-Totter

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Max from Dallas.

Hello, Max. How you doing?

Hey, Max.

My wife and I recently had a discussion on teeter-totter versus seesaw. And she believes that it’s teeter-totter all day long, and I grew up with seesaw. And we’ve been bickering back and forth ever since. So hopefully you guys can settle this one once and for all.

I love this.

I do, too. I bet she’s not from Texas.

No. Actually, I’m from New Jersey, and she’s from Ohio.

Oh, interesting.

And you say, which one do you say?

I say seesaw.

And I just have this great mental picture, Max, of you and your wife on a seesaw or a teeter-totter going up and down, having this discussion about whether it’s seesaw or teeter-totter.

Absolutely. We’ve asked everybody we know, including my wife’s 80-year-old grandmother. And it’s been crazy.

Okay.

And what does she say?

Her grandmother says teeter-totter.

Is she from Ohio also?

She is.

Very interesting.

Because this really does sort of seesaw back and forth in terms of the location where people say different things. I mean, usually, in general, you see teeter-totter more across the northern part of the country.

Yeah, the west and the northwest and northern plains states, that sort of thing.

Exactly.

And then seesaw is through the South. I mean, if you look at maps of where these two terms are used, I mean, it sort of looks like a teeter-totter in a way. I mean, because, you know, like half and half.

Most of Texas says seesaw or used to before the big influx of people from other parts of the country.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I can tell you growing up in Kentucky, I said seesaw, but I remember people every once in a while, these interlopers would come to our elementary school.

They’re firing ways.

Yeah, these new students from the north. And to me, teeter-totter sounded so pretentious.

I’m looking at this wonderful map, these two maps in the Dictionary of American Regional English. And I’m originally from Missouri, and it is well known as a state with some linguistic ambiguities and conflicts. And sure enough, you can see by the map, it’s half seesaw and half teeter-totter.

I grew up with both. I mean, clearly both. Like, no, there was never any real understanding that one was better than the other.

Yeah. I believe seesaw is much older than teeter-totter. And, you know, those aren’t the only ones, Max. There’s a ton of terms.

When the folks, the editors, the lexicographers, the Dictionary of American Regional English did their survey where they went around the country with these little vans and tape recorders in the 1960s and 70s, they asked the question about what people called this particular playground device, and I think there’s something like 30 or 40 responses.

So, Max, you’re both right. You both owe each other a kiss and a dinner and dishes.

Okay, I can do that.

I think you need to hit a playground, you know, just for old time’s sake.

Yeah.

And you get on the—

Just for old time’s sake, get on the old seesaw.

Yeah.

Or Peter Totter. And do the childhood dream, finally, now that you’re an adult and you can do whatever you like, of launching the other person into space.

That’s what we always tried. It never really worked like the cartoons.

I can do that.

Cool, Max. Thanks for calling. Really appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Cheers, Matt.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Yep.

Bye-bye.

You know, we’re talking about the Dictionary of American Regional English a lot on this show.

Yes, we do.

This is one of those cases where you can’t get this information with this kind of clarity anywhere else.

Yeah, yeah.

And it’s a real thing. It’s right there in black and white. It’s a genuine thing. It shows, it indicates things like settlement patterns and the way that language spreads among people who are like each other.

Migration, yes.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

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