Shopping Buggy

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Angela calling from Dallas.

Hi, Angela. Welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

What’s cooking?

I was calling because my husband and I listen to the show either in Dallas or on podcast really frequently.

And we always end up discussing the same issue, which is what do we call the thing with wheels that you put your groceries in?

And where I’m from, which is northwest Louisiana, a lot of people I know, we call it a buggy.

And my husband always teases me about this because he says, no, a buggy is what you put a baby in.

This is a cart.

And I haven’t met anyone from anywhere else who has ever called it a buggy except from northwest Louisiana.

And so I guess we were just wondering about the regional differences of those things and if it’s popular anywhere else.

And maybe get my husband to not tease me about it somewhat.

Where is he from?

He was born in Florida and grew up in rural Georgia, and by age 18 had lived in Lubbock, San Antonio, Dallas.

He lived in Austin for a while.

So kind of all over.

Okay.

So, Angela, you call it a buggy, and he calls it what?

A cart.

A cart.

A shopping cart?

This is what I’m talking about, right?

Or does he say grocery cart?

He says shopping cart.

Okay.

What do you say, Martha?

I say shopping cart, I think.

Yeah, me too.

Shopping cart.

Shopping cart.

Would your husband happen to be around?

Yes, he’s right here.

Would you like to speak to him?

Sure.

Oh, yes, please.

Okay.

This is Eric.

Hi, Eric.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

So you make fun of your wife for saying buggy?

Yes, I give her a hard time about it.

She’s clearly incorrect, and I lovingly nudge her.

Oh, really?

And who does the grocery shopping in the family?

Generally, I do.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

I’ll tell you, though, there is an army waiting to rise to her defense,

And they live throughout the South and East Texas and Louisiana and parts of Georgia and Alabama,

And they’re all buggy sayers.

It sounds like a war on the South.

No, it’s a war.

The South will rise again, and it will be about the word for shopping cart.

Well, my father is from Massachusetts originally.

My mother grew up in Arkansas, but her mother was an English war bride and was very strict about their language.

And so if it’s more a northern use, I wonder if that may be from whence it came in my vocabulary.

Well, actually, it’s pretty widespread all over the country.

Shopping cart is much more widespread, I’d say, than buggy.

So you’re in the majority there.

Also in Massachusetts, you see shopping wagon.

I don’t know if you ever heard that one.

I have not.

But there are large numbers of people who they shop with a buggy.

It’s the same device.

It looks exactly the same.

It’s just a different name.

And it’s definitely a regionalism.

There’s nothing wrong about it.

Well, not morally wrong, perhaps.

Well, it’s not going to kill anybody, no.

No, it is one of the few disagreements that my wife and I have.

Well, that’s excellent.

How lucky are you, then?

That’s great.

Incredibly so.

Well, can you put Angela back on the line?

I’d be happy to.

Thanks for talking to us, Eric.

Hello.

Hi, Angela. I don’t know if you heard that, but the short version is that buggy is used throughout the South, so it’s not just Louisiana.

Okay. Well, that’s good to know. I’ve lived in a few different places, and everyone I know who uses buggy is from Louisiana,

And I’ve lived in a few places in Texas, but people here seem to say cart, but maybe it’s because they’re more metropolitan areas?

Maybe. It’s not that common, but it’s common enough that it’s been recorded in the dialect dictionaries,

And it sometimes pops up in dictionaries of Southernism.

You’ll find people in East Texas and Georgia and Alabama and Northern Florida, just bits and pieces of people here and there who say buggy.

And they have no shame in it.

And they just go about their business and live the same lives that the rest of us do.

Well, then I’ll continue to hit shame-free.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Well, thanks for calling.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Shopping cart.

And didn’t we get a call once about Bass Cart?

I think that was somebody from Louisville.

It was a brand name, right?

Yeah, brand name.

In fact, after we had that call, I went and read a long treatise on the development of the shopping cart.

It’s actually really interesting how they did that.

I have a question for you. Are you a giant nerd?

Yes, I am. Nerdist gigantist.

No, it really was interesting because the guy who invented the shopping cart couldn’t get people to use them

Because men thought they weren’t manly and women said,

I’m not going to push another buggy after I’ve been pushing the baby buggy.

But he hired people to go into the store and push these carts around, and people started to see these actors using the shopping carts.

I love it.

Yeah, it’s brilliant. It’s almost Mad Men, isn’t it?

Mm—

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