The "What would you say for X?" Thread

[linguoboy]

Just as the "How do you pronounce X?" thread is for discussing pronunciation variants, this thread is for discussing lexical and morphsyntactic ones. I'll start off with something that brought me up short in an novel by a Canadian author:

You are wearing shoes and socks and you take off your shoes. You are now walking around in ____?

I would've said stocking feet, but the idiom he uses is sock feet.

[Spoiler tags to avoid influencing your answers.]

[DelBoy]

I'm with you - the first one.

[JackFrost]

In socks, simply.

[linguoboy]

In socks, simply.

Parallèle au français "en chausettes".

[JackFrost]

But it's not French influence though.

[hlysnan]

In socks, simply.

Same here, actually.

[hashi]

In socks, simply.

Same here, actually.

"walking around in your/my socks" is what I would say.

[Kenny]

This has come up more than once but it would be nice to see all the input in one place. So what would you call these? From what I can recall, Brits and Aussies prefer trolley while it's simply a shopping cart in North America or at least in GA. Anything else? (Also, French "caddie" which came from a brand name. Do you have anything like that in English?)

Oh and then there's the supposedly Southnern US (although it seems to pop up elsewhere as well) buggy that conjures up a pretty funny image for me.

[HoItalosPhilellên]

You are wearing shoes and socks and you take off your shoes. You are now walking around in ____?

Sandals or at least slippers at home. Walking around in socks is uncomfortable. But socks wherever else required to take off one's shoes.

while it's simply a shopping cart in North America or at least in GA. Anything else?

Nope.

Oh and then there's the supposedly Southnern US (although it seems to pop up elsewhere as well) buggy that conjures up a pretty funny image for me.

Dafuq's that? Sounds like those rovers that troll the Moon and Mars.

[hlysnan]

"Trolley" over here. "Shopping cart" is understood, but not as common.

[hashi]

Trolley.

[JackFrost]

It's more simple to say a cart. Shopping cart is just more technical, that's all.

(Also, French "caddie" which came from a brand name. Do you have anything like that in English?)

We call it a panier (d'épicerie) here.

[TaylorS]

"In socks"

"Shopping Cart"

[Dormouse559]

"In (possessive pronoun) socks"

"shopping cart" or "cart"

[JackFrost]

Shit, I accidentally moved Dormouse's post about the shopping cart.

I moved the whole possessive bahbah to the general language forum.

EDIT: I found the way to put Dormouse and Taylor's post back in this thread.

Now the world is safe again.

[johntm]

@Linguoboy: I'd say "in socks".

Buggies, brah. They're buggies. I've been told this is just a Georgia thing, but I learned it from my parents (both from South Carolina, but lived in Georgia for 16 years, over half of which after I was born).I'm equally likely to say buggy or shopping cart, or just cart.

[linguoboy]

A question for all those who responded with "in socks": Would you always specify the specific type of footwear? So "in tights", "in stockings", "in pantyhose", etc. depending on what the person in question was wearing at the time? What about a context like "Our parents told us not to run around the house in X" where "X" refers to any and all of the above?

[johntm]

A question for all those who responded with "in socks": Would you always specify the specific type of footwear?

Yes, I probably would.

Here's one...if you guys were about to go do homework (or something else, just a random example), and your friend asks where you're going (so informal context), how would you respond?
Friend: Where are you going?
Me: I'm fixin' to (fixin tuh, I don't merge it into "finna", but I might say "fixin na") do some homework. (I'm about as equally likely to say "about to" or "gonna" instead of "fixin to" though

[linguoboy]

Friend: Where are you going?
Me: None o' yer damn business.

[Dormouse559]

Friend: Where are you going?
Me: I'm gonna/going to do my homework.