Day camp "bunk"? | Imamother

WastingTime

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 5:09 pm

so funny- my husband and I just had this convo tonight
I grew up in sleepaway camp, so naturally it was a bunk. We were discussing sending the kids to day camp and he said something about which bunk they'll be in. I thought he was kidding until he told me that's really a used term. Very strange. Maybe its a way to make camp seem more "real"!

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 5:26 pm

Squishy wrote:

Chicken breasts are called chicken cutlets.
Chicken cutlets are called schnitzel.
Capons are dark meat chicken cut off the bone.

Bras are called underwear.

Borrow me means lend me.

I'm from the east coast. I never call bras underwear. I call it what it is unless I feel like saying it outright was inappropriate for the situation and I'll call it undergarments.

amother

Orchid ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 5:40 pm

WastingTime wrote:

"Sleepaway camp" is largely a NY-ism. Elsewhere, its overnight camp.

amother

Green ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 5:42 pm

I have come across many frumspeak words since joining the yeshivish world after a much more modern upbringing......
Wagon instead of shopping cart
Tumblesauce instead of somersault
Going away instead of going out
Take away instead of take out (for food)
Carriage instead of stroller
Briefcase instead of knapsack/school bag (as others have mentioned)
Ending a sentence with "but" instead of "though" (as in "She is coming. She said she is going to be late but.")

Also, when I was growing up, we referred to day camp as "camp" and to overnight camp as "sleepaway camp," but I find in the yeshivish world "camp" refers to sleepaway, and day camp is specifically called day camp in everyday conversation.

amother

↑ Mustard ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 6:03 pm

WastingTime wrote:

I think its for lack of a good word. 'group' is kinda lame.

I had a similar conversation with my DH. A local camp operating out of a school was advertising the camp had 'separate bunks for girls and boys' and I was like 'huh? they are aren't sleeping in the classrooms" which lead to a discussion - if not 'bunks' whats the right word?

Raisin

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 6:10 pm

Seriously. Every subculture has unique words and phrases. The english I speak is very different then the english you speak, does this mean my english or your english is wrong? Is the english spoken by a black kid from Harlem or Jamaica "wrong"? Or the english spoken in Yorkshire or Sydney?

I remember in camp in the UK we used to call the girls who helped in the kitchen "kitchen shleps". One year we had some american head counselors who were very perturbed by this, to them, incorrect usage and insisted on calling them waitresses. Neither term is wrong of course.

Then again I find the term "chicken bottoms" extremely unappetising. Please never offer me any. Thighs or legs works well.

↑ 33055 ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 6:16 pm

amother wrote:

When I was growing up, airing out is something we did to objects. In frum speak, it refers to a person usually a lady going to the store because she "needs to air out".

In frumspeak "sponser" means to pay for. I will sponser lunch for my son.

"How's by you? " means how are you?

Dandelion1 ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 6:47 pm

Raisin wrote:

This exactly.

No language can exist without regional dialects. It's a natural, inevitable result of language use within a distinct group that coexists (whatever the source of the grouping, ie, religious, racial, geographical, etc.). It cannot be otherwise because language is not static and is influenced on a regular basis by the realities of the place it is being spoken in.

amother

↑ Green

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 6:54 pm

aleph wrote:

Yes, this is of course true. I guess, having grown up in a neighborhood where frum Jews were few and far between, it is just somewhat fascinating to me to encounter a reality in which there is such a concentration of frum Jews that they have their own unique vocabulary, to the extent that many are not even aware that some of this terminology is not used at all in society at large. Don't mean it in a negative way at all...just my observations.

MagentaYenta ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 7:01 pm

simcha2 wrote:

My own personal frumspeak pet peeve is using "by" for "at" and "during".

My dd says "by English class the morah..." or "I'm eating by Devorah's".

Drives me nuts.

I'm going to be traveling east at the end of the summer and I'll need to remind myself not to outwardly grimace when I hear these particular manifestations of the Yinglish dialect.

leah233 ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 7:02 pm

aleph wrote:

No language can exist without regional dialects. It's a natural, inevitable result of language use within a distinct group that coexists (whatever the source of the grouping, ie, religious, racial, geographical, etc.). It cannot be otherwise because language is not static and is influenced on a regular basis by the realities of the place it is being spoken in.

Most of the examples give on this thread aren't caused by regional differences. They are holdover transliterations from Yiddish .

↑ Dandelion1 ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 7:06 pm

leah233 wrote:

Most of the examples give on this thread aren't caused by regional differences. They are holdover transliterations from Yiddish .

Sure, the influence of other languages is a frequent source of dialectical differences.

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 7:12 pm

amother wrote:

Hmm, this makes me think. When I grew up we were just Jews the frum issue didn't come into play until I was close to adulthood. But that being said, the Jews in my town were mostly immigrants or first generation Americans and American English was de rigueur. My HS English teacher was frum by current standards and an immigrant. Students left his classes knowing the difference between adverbs and prepositions and when it was appropriate to use them.

amother

↑ Orchid

Tue, Jul 18 2017, 7:12 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

I'm going to be traveling east at the end of the summer and I'll need to remind myself not to outwardly grimace when I hear these particular manifestations of the Yinglish dialect.

You're coming to our jawn?