In the winter or especially when it snowed we would wear a pair of pants under our prissy little girl dresses to keep us warm! LOL! That is such a hoot now! About the only time we wore pants was in the summer when we wore shorts 'cause it gets hot here. I remember my mom wearing "Bermuda" length shorts in the summer but don't remember her in pants too often. Younger girls wore "capri pants" or "pedal pushers" more often than long pants.

Yeah Teresa...and "clam diggers"!
And all the grocery cart/ trolly talk brings to mind a "package store"...where you go to get a package....Oh My! How things have changed!

In my grandmother's world men wore trousers not pants, women wore slacks but never to church.

Around here those bagger/sackers are called "courtesy clerks." But I've also heard "box boy." But I see as many girls now as boys doing this job.

I was in Walmart today briefly and saw what I recall as housedresses. Cheap, shapeless, utilitarian. These happen to be plus size so they look especially roomy. They haven't gotten more stylish over time. The fabric was a cotton blend woven print. One had snaps, one had a zipper.

Hubba hubba!

Those look like summer dressing gowns (to go over nighties) to me!
We use shopping trolleys and there are no baggers, sackers, bag or box boys, the check out chick has a sort of framework the bags fit into that she puts the groceries into after swiping them through the bar code reader. In some shops they hand you a pile of bags and you either bag them yourself or with assistance from the check out person after they have rung up your purchase. The bags have been plastic (more recently biodegradable plastic) for as long as I can remember, decades. Some shops keep a supply of the boxes products come in for packing if customers prefer, or we can use our own cloth bags, which I generally do as they're cheap and I have a bunch that live in the boot (trunk) of the car. If I'm running low on bags to line the kitchen rubbish bin I get a couple of shopping bags.
A trolley as in street car is a tram here (well, in Melbourne, the only place they are left :-( ).

Those "house dresses" above are, in my opinion, as Colleen described - a cover-up over your summer pjs or gown. A house dress could be worn outside and to visit your neighbor next door. You could answer the door in your house dress but you wouldn't answer the door in a thin pj cover-up. And you wouldn't wear your house dress to go shopping in the city.

My mother called her purse, her handbag. WE were absolutely not allowed to go into her handbag. Ever.

But I call it my Purse.

I also have a small leather backpack that I take to craft fairs or Disney; places where I want my arms free. It's very cute and not at all like a fanny pack! Even though I do have two fanny packs, but they are leftovers from the 80's. Now they live in my top drawer of the nightstand and hold receipts.

Barnmom, those housedresses ... My Gyno uses those instead of disposable paper gowns. I love that she goes that extra step to insure her patients are comfy.

Interesting. DH is definitely not Texan, even though we've lived here a long time. He's more Oklahoman than anything, but grew up all over as a PK and army brat. I bet he grew up hearing his mom call them housecoats, so that's why he calls them that. I guess. I'll have to ask him. He probably has no idea it's a feminine term, and could probably care less that it is.

My mother used to wear what I thought of as summer robes like those in Barnmom's picture. I don't remember if she had a particular name for them.

I'd love to know what's going through that woman's mind. She looks like she's ready to whollop someone with that rolling pin.

I use a shopping cart at the grocery store, although I've heard them called buggies frequently, too. Sadly, baggers are few and far between, and even at the more expensive stores, it seems we're expected to bag our own groceries if we want to finish up in a timely manner. I bring my own bags, and the checker will pile all the stuff in the bagging area, even though they're set up to bag as they go. I understand bagging my own food when I'm shopping at one of those kind of stores with lower prices, but not at the expensive stores. But, I digress. sorry.

Sally

P.S. Okay, I just told DH that housecoat is a feminine term, and he said that makes sense, cause his Dad never wore them. lol.

Oh, so it's not a regional usage, just a your-house usage. Good to know!

Do they call shopping carts trolleys in the UK? I associate that term with the British.

Our checkers also do most of the bagging. The customers can help if they want to, and many do. Unfortunately it takes me so long to get one of those darn plastic bags open, the checker usually has everything bagged! When the lines get long, the baggers go to work. They are often the same people who push the carts in from the parking lot.

Another reason I don't always do the bagging is that I am busy pushing buttons. Swipe my card, choose debit or credit, enter my PIN number, no I don't want cash back and yes that total is fine with me -- sheesh.

Oh brother, those housecoats are the worst. I think there is one woman on my street who still wears one of those during the day. She is actually ultra-neat, but old-fashioned. She wears little slippers with them. Almost no one is allowed in her house, but the one time I went in I had to take off my shoes. When she goes out, she looks nice.

My grandmother never left the house in those things for sure, for sure. I guess I'm not up on retro casual fashion.

Speaking of shopping carts, I recenter encountered something new - a grocery store where you have to deposit a quarter into a locking mechanism on the cart in order to use it. When you return the cart, you get your quarter back. I had no clue about this and someone explained that they do it so people actually return the carts to the front of the store.

At first, I was annoyed, but now I actually think it's a good idea. I find it so amazing that no matter how many "cart corrals" stores have, shoppers can't manage to walk a few feet to return carts and instead leave them in the lot, where they either take up parking spaces or end up rolling into cars.

I don't remember ever seeing my mom in pants until around 1972 and after that, I rarely saw her in a dress, except for special occasions. If she was really dressing down in the summer, she wore "clam diggers" or Bermuda shorts.

Sue

When I had a houseful to feed I shopped occasionally at the bag-it-yourself store for the price breaks when I needed a lot of stuff. It was good when I had Alice or Daniel to bag for me while I did the paying and button pushing. Otherwise I felt like Lucy on the conveyor belt in the candy factory.

Now I shop mostly by bicycle and put the few things I buy in my backpack. I take my own cloth tote bags as well. It doesn't take much to feed a small 55 year old woman, I've found. And the need for daily fresh things keeps me getting some exercise. I see more and more people bringing their own bags. Alice told me that in San Luis Obispo they charge ten cents a bag, it might be more. It's enough that she was happy to keep the Trader Joe cloth sacks I took goodies in when I visited. Here most stores knock off a small amount, a nickel or a dime per bag. I don't pay attention. One store donates that to keeping state parks open. Too late probably as 77 parks were closed.

I digress. I wear some goofy things around the house but I would NEVER own one of those awful things! I do my housework in cut-offs and old t-shirts usually. Jeans when it's colder. Add a down vest to rake leaves in the fall or clean the winter pool. And I'm guilty of socks and flip flops in the house when it's cool.

I say pocketbook, might be more of a regional thing than an age thing. When I shop at a package store (in CT, there are stores labeled as such), it is to buy alcohol because that is what a package store sells, at least in CT). I sit on a couch and drink soda that I have bought at the grocery store, or grocery market. A boy sometimes bags my groceries. I push a cart there.

Fun thread.

Jo

Pam, there definitely was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry was carrying a European carryall, which he had it stolen from him, and had to admit to a policeman that he had been carrying a purse. The episode is called Reverse Peephole, and you can probably view it on line somewhere. It's a pretty good one.

Eileen, I do not remember a bar in the early 80s called "Meat Market" in San Francisco. Do you remember the neighborhood it was in? I sounds like SoM, and I did not go there very often, except to go to The Stud and Hamburger Mary's across the street. I used to go to another bar on 11th and Folson that had a swimming pool, but I would only go there in the afternoon for a swim. I mostly went to Discos when I lived in SF instead of just bars because I liked to dance.

I used to make house dresses for my mother, but they were much nicer than what you show from Walmart. I made most of them with a contrasting yoke, and you could slip them on over your head. Of course I used much nice fabric than was normally used for house dresses, and I also made silk and linen blouses and skirts for my mother. She didn't like the silk because it had to be dry cleaned, and she didn't like the linen because it had to be ironed. I preshrank all the linen before I made the garments, and so shrinkage was not a problem and they were washable.

I remember women wearing Capri pants around 1960, and it made me want to go to Capri! The pants for girls were called "pedal pushers" and I assumed they were for riding bikes. As a boy, I got to wear similar pants called "clam diggers", but I had to go to Galveston or Corpus Christi to dig clams.

Lars

I recall the bar being in Noe Valley not SoMa. Might have been late 70s not early 80s. I remember the bar with the swimming pool. Name? Oasis, maybe? It was a dance place, too. Didn't the dance floor get placed over the pool? I was there a few times.

There was a difference between capris and pedal pushers. Length? Width and tailoring? One more casual that the other? Or are they the same thing with a different name?

Clam diggers I always thought of baggy and very casual. Maybe that was just my response to the silly name. Not a clam to be dug in Arizona.

First...I'm sorry I couldn't help you LindaC..I was out to lunch with some friends. Difference is I grew up in a very rural area and you were probably in an urban setting.

This thread has really gotten complicated, so many different directions. I always wore skirts or dresses to work (until 1962, when I became a SAHM) and even though I'm 5'9", which was considered TALL then, I most always wore heels but sandals a lot in summer.

I wore capri pants which I think were longer than pedal pushers because the slacks were, most often, too short for my long legs. Sseems as though capris were a little dressier than pedal pushers.

Don't wear skirts or dresses any more, probably to grandsons wedding in 2004 was the last time.

Not going to get into the "house dress" discussion. It could go on forever.LOL I have enjoyed the memories this thread has triggered.

jude

I carry a purse. It contains my wallet (store cards, ID, paper money, checkbook), separate card holder that I made for the lesser used cards (library, insurance, etc.), plus keys, glasses, any number of personal grooming items, notepad, pens, etc.
My change is rolling around the bottom loose.

We have a couch in the living room (sorry, Lars!...grin).
Grandma had a Daveno! Does that make six terms now?
No ottoman here, the coffee table works fine to rest my feet.

I grab my Robe for a quick dash to the kitchen in the middle of the night.

I shop at the Grocery Store (when I'm not at a local farm stand) and on occasion, a courtesy clerk will help bag my groceries. Usually the checker bags them.
A Bag is the plastic grocery bag. A Sack is a paper one.
A Bag can also be a reusable one I've brought along with me.

When I get them home though, they change names (never really thought about this before....).
I reuse plastic Sacks for trash and sort my burnable paper items into a Paper Bag. Now THAT'S weird.

Lovin' this thread. It's always interesting to see how terminology differs by region, history or just by person.
And fairly amazing that we can all still function using different words for the same thing!

Deanna

Capri pants were longer and tighter than pedal-pushers and generally had a slit at the bottom of the leg, which p-p's did not. Clam diggers were made for both boys and girls (and maybe women), and the ones I had in the 60s were not really baggy and came just below the knee. Board shorts for guys were tight back then also and not baggy. Capri pants were definitely more formal than pedal pushers and were frequently worn at cocktail parties, sometimes with a open skirt over them. I have a 1961 Look magazine that has "Italian Beauties in At Home Wear" on the cover, featuring Italian women all in Capri length pants, some as jumpsuits, and some with ballerina skirts. I think Audrey Hepburn helped make this look popular, but I have always liked it. I think women generally wore high heels with Capri pants, but not with pedal-pushers. They may have worn fancy flats or sandals with Capri pants as well, however, and would carry a clutch purse, to get back to the original topic.

I have done extensive research on the history of fashion!

Lars

Well Jude, better late than never...smirk!!
Those garments pictured above from Wal-mart are properly called house coats. House dresses are more constructed. You don't wear a house dress without underwear....a house coat...usually you put it over your night gown to fix breakfast.....then get dressed in your house dress.
And all that brings us to bathrobes and dressing gowns....

Oh and I have that green handled rolling pin....it was my mother's.

Here is a link that might be useful: House dresses

A Bag is the plastic grocery bag. A Sack is a paper one.
A Bag can also be a reusable one I've brought along with me.
When I get them home though, they change names (never really thought about this before....).
I reuse plastic Sacks for trash and sort my burnable paper items into a Paper Bag. Now THAT'S weird.

Oh, wow, Deanna, that is really something! I'd really like to know if that's generally true in your area.

I don't have a housecoat. I put my robe over my pj's to fix breakfast and sometimes I still have both of them on at lunchtime.LOL I always thought a dressing gown was a fairly ancient term. Maybe that's because I don't think I ever had one.tee hee

jude

Hi Sharon! It's good to see you posting again. We miss you.

Sharon, how good it is to see you posting! You have certainly been missed!

jude

I'd love it if all stores phased out the plastic bags. I just hate them. I even hate having to take them back to the store for recycling, although of course I do. I have tons of them by the time I finally get around to it. I liked the good old double bagged brown bags, although I guess that's wasteful.

Great stuff. I think we should go back even further and call that bag an "indispensable", since we would be so lost with all the stuff we keep in them.

See Reticule. Scroll down a bit, it's pretty interesting stuff. Life was sure different then.

I remember pedal pushers, I don't recall liking them. By the time I was in college - jeans replaced everything. Now I wear pants almost all the time. Love them.

I wonder how much longer we'll have coins.

We're going to have coins forever, but hopefully not pennies. It's an easy matter to change the denomination of coins, and we could see half-dollars and dollar coins increase in popularity. When I was a child in the late 1950s I remember half dollars and silver dollars being quite common. The metal/mining industries will never allow coins to become obsolete, which is why we still have pennies.

Lars

I heard on CNN yesterday that it now costs 11 cents to make a nickel. They jokingly said that maybe it is cheaper to just borrow money from China instead of making it ourselves!

While at Disney last week I noticed a sign in the bathroom stall for a hook to hang your "handbag". I suppose that means Minnie calls it a handbag.

I heard recently that "pocketbook" is a regional term - emanating from the New York area! Growing up in N.J., we always called "it" a "pocketbook." Now I am in my forties, so has this become "dated terminology?" Funny, since I always thought "Purse" sounded so little old lady like!

Yogi Berra said, "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore," but if it costs 11 cents to make a nickel, then it is worth a dime today.

My sister and I were just reminiscing about Mom's bed jackets. Haven't seen one in ages. When we buried her, I included pantyhose although the mortician said nobody would ever see. Mom would have been mortified to be wearing a dress without hose, seen or otherwise.

Dad always called our underwear "drawers." That term could also be applied to actual pants, but usually meant underpants.

For those who don't have young daughters or granddaughters, little girls generally wear leggings under their dresses these days.

As for young child mispronunciations/interpretations: my just 4-year old granddaughter calls the back up camera in the car the "booster-up." She asks for it to be turned on while we are driving forward and doesn't understand why we don't do that for her.

I saw a snippet on the news yesterday saying that pennies cost the gov't 1.5 cents to manufacture, and that nickels are also manufactured at a loss -- but -- they said the gov't makes money on dimes and quarters.

Many times, they've talked about eliminating pennies and making dollar coins to replace the notes, but these schemes are so unpopular with the populace that the government just uses our tax money to make up any shortfall on making them.

Nadalee - my wife from NJ who's in her 40's calls it a purse and thinks pocketbook sounds old fashioned :)

Never called it anthing but a purse.......I consider a pocketbook a wallet.

We replaced our 1 and 2 Dollar bills years ago with coins.....affectionately called he Loonie and the Twoonie.

Two years ago we abolished the lowly penny....and I sure don't miss it !

"Pocketbook" was originally a notebook to write in. Folding money and checks were originally very big, but could be folded and stashed in one's pocketbook without getting overly mussed or damaged. Pocketbooks came to be made with sections and spots for extraneous papers. Think seventeenth century Filofax. :) It's easy to see how the word came to mean thing with all my precious stuff in it.

A purse was originally a drawstring bag for coins and other accoutrements.

"Pockets" or purses were often tied around the waist, under the clothing, and accessed through a slit. To protect the contents and foil the "cutpurse". Like wearing your bag crossbody and under your coat as I was instructed to do in New York, and why they sell ladies' bags with steel mesh linings in the bottoms and straps--so urchins with knives can't sneak up on you and cut them.

Easy to see how the meanings of pocket and pocketbook led to the current usage of pocketbook. Also easy to see how purse came to be what we carry now.

"Handbag" was originally a small piece of luggage, created as an alternative for ladies whose purses and reticules were dainty and fragile and not up to the rigors of travel, especially as road dust gave over to coal soot and grease. Easy to see how it still applies to our large, sturdy purses.

It all makes sense. I'd be more interested to know how these became dominant in different regions and culture groups but that's not an easy thing to determine. "Purse" is used most commonly in broad based advertising, I think, helping it become dominant. I've read that it's more widespread in the West, which might have to do with Westward expansion and what the settlers had and used. "Pocketbook" may sound "old fashioned" because it's more regional, and possibly because it's used in fiction entertainment as a way of adding character to ladies of a certain age. But that's speculation.

Grew up in New jersey....and I am decidedly well out of my 40's....called it a "pockabook"...and now I have succumbed to regionalism and call it a purse. The "up scale" shop(pe)s advertise "women't handbags."

...And then there's "bag"....as in an "evening bag"...
Different terminology became common in different parts of the country, because the East coast became civilized well before other parts of the country.
Not aware of the term "pocketbook" being used in "fiction entertainment" to add character....?

I know what you mean, suzanne_sl. When my Mom was cremated, I fretted so much that I hadn't supplied underwear to the funeral home that I went back to my mother's house (a four hour round trip) to get some and take it in.

My aunt and grandparents (and I think my Dad when I was little) called it a pocketbook, my Mom called it a purse but I call it a handbag as that's really the only word anyone uses here.

I saw mention on some TV show about style that the current correct term is "bag."

Wow, this four year old post got bumped up. I am calling it a bag more than ever and sometimes a purse.

My grandmother, born 1900 in southeastern Colorado, carried a 'pocketbook'. Inside the pocketbook, she had a 'coinpurse'. My mom had a purse. I used to have 'purses' but after I had kids, I switched to a fannypack because it was easier to keep up with. Ditched the fannypack for only a wallet, the kind with the coin and credit card compartments and that's all that I carry now. Easy to tuck into a coat or jacket pocket or into the waistband of my jeans during the six weeks of the year when it's too warm for either (in Wisconsin).

I grew up on the east coast calling them pocketbooks. When I moved to L.A., I noticed that most women called them purses. I alternate between the two.

I'm 70, live alone, and when the weather is warm I wear house dresses. No bra. They are more comfortable than jeans, although I usually wear those then I go out. I just don't like the idea of sitting around in my nightgown all day.

I've always called it a purse, but Grandma, born in Ohio, called it a pocketbook. Like cilantro's family, she also had a "coin purse" that she kept change in, it looked like a small bag with a metal clasp. She also had a "compact" for face powder.

Mother had a purse and a wallet. The wallet had a small compartment for coins, slots for driver's license and credit card and a place for paper money as well as one for her check book. She had a matching "cigarette case" which held a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She did eventually quit smoking, and now a cell phone case has taken the place of the cigarettes.

Now I have a purse and a wallet, much like Mother's, but mine has more spaces for the endless supply of today's cards, from insurance cards to Costco to the local gas station, AAA, AARP, the library. You name it, they got a card!

cacaobird, I refuse to go out in public in my pajamas, although I live near a college town and it seems like 90% of the students go to morning classes in their pajamas. Since I live out in the country, though, I can walk out with a cup of coffee and curse the beavers in the pond without anyone else seeing me.

I've never worn a house dress that I remember, and I'm 61.

Annie

Growing up, there was a distinction between 'house coats' and a 'house dress'. The photo above, the one taken in Wal-Mart of the pink and blue garments, are examples of what were/ are called house coats. House coats were really just robes, unfitted garments worn in the house as a cover-up over your nightgown. House dresses were fitted garments with constructed collars and usually a bodice and attached skirt...something decent enough for a trip to the grocery store but not dressy enough for church.

I do remember that Mom had a favorite house coat that kinda' blurred the lines between robe and house dress. It was a pastel plaid princess cut w/ a softly constructed collar with wide-ish lapels, double breasted w/ large button closures. Mom wore that thing threadbare and talked about deconstructing it to make a pattern so she could duplicate it. Don't remember that ever happening...we moved a couple/ three times in a short span about that time so it probably got ditched in a move.

My Great Grandma called it a pocketbook. You were not allowed near her pocketbook. It wasn't until I was older that I understood why she would take you out if you got near it. She would tear slits in to her pocketbook and sew money into it. She would also clean out a lipstick tube and roll her money up into it. One time we went shopping and she told me to shhh as she grabbed her tube of lipstick out of her purse and unrolled 2 $100 bills out of the tube. She must have had at least 5 more rolled up in there I was amazed.

I have different terms I use depending what type of bag I am using. If it is on my shoulder with a long strap it is a purse or cross body, If it is carried on my arm with a short handle it is a bag or my handbag.

"and she told me to shhh as she grabbed her tube of lipstick out of her purse"

Apr,

It is so fun to read your description of your great grandma, she was so cute. It also reminded me of a brilliant invention.

Years ago, an Indian girl friend told me they had a "smart" purse that turned on a small light inside of it when opened the purse, so women could see when counting the money with their hands in the purse.

I say purse. Pocketbook seems a bit old fashioned.

I think I say handbag, too.

LOL on the housecoats! I'm younger than a lot of people here, but when I was in my 20's I always had a housecoat. Back then we wore a lot of very constructed dresses and heavy wool skirts, of the kind that are meant to be worn several times before going to the cleaners. One wore lovely lingerie underneath--slips or half slips and camisoles and took off the nice clothes at home. The housecoat went over the lovely lingerie to "be decent" in front of open windows, or to open the door to the mailman. My housecoat opened down the front like a robe, but looked more like an unconstructed dress.

Nowadays, I still don't wear my good clothes at home. I have "little dresses". They were meant to be worn in public, but are more like long T-shirts or sweaters that wash easily. I will throw on a skirt or coat to go to the grocery store, even though I could just go as is, but I have no compunction going out to the street or opening the door to whomever wearing a little dress. I rarely call them "housedresses", however, which usually are more like what are sold as loungewear. They're just unstructured short dresses, many knit, that allow one to be fully clothed but with the freedom of an apron or smock.