• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Local & Dialect Words

catseye said:
I was thinking this morning about my Mum because I was making a stew. Now, I call the fluffy suet-and-flour (and sometimes herbs or cheese) things that float in a stew 'dumplings'. But I was remembering that my mum used to call them 'doughboys'. As far as I am aware, dumplings is the usual word and you can buy 'dumpling mix' in packets (which is just flour and suet and you add water).

Mum came from Windsor originally - is it a south eastern word? Or did it arise in the family?
Click to expand...
Windsor is super posh,there was an American army camp not far during the Second World War,maybe the word bled over to the locals vocab?
 
Druk said:
Windsor is super posh,there was an American army camp not far during the Second World War,maybe the word bled over to the locals vocab?
Click to expand...
Ha ha, not all Windsor is super posh! My mum grew up sitting on deck chairs because her mother couldn't afford furniture! But there could be a USA crossover - do they call dumplings doughboys in the States?
 
catseye said:
Ha ha, not all Windsor is super posh! My mum grew up sitting on deck chairs because her mother couldn't afford furniture! But there could be a USA crossover - do they call dumplings doughboys in the States?
Click to expand...
Doughboys was a nickname for American troops way back when.I am in Windsor often,I always feel like a peasant :rolleyes:
 
Druk said:
I am in Windsor often,I always feel like a peasant :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
tt.jpg
 
Stormkhan said:
As far as I'm aware 'doughboy' was an American term for themselves - a plain soldier. As such, I don't know the derivation.
Click to expand...
Found this section in Wikipedia, which mentions ~
The origins of the term are unclear, though it was in wide circulation a century earlier in Britain & America - with different meanings.
Admiral Nelson and the Duke of Wellington's soldiers in Spain were both familiar with fried dumplings called 'doughboys.'
In America, it was apparently applied to young bakers boy apprentices as being 'doughboys.' A pre-cursor to the doughnut.
 
Sid said:
Found this section in Wikipedia, which mentions ~
The origins of the term are unclear, though it was in wide circulation a century earlier in Britain & America - with different meanings.
Admiral Nelson and the Duke of Wellington's soldiers in Spain were both familiar with fried dumplings called 'doughboys.'
In America, it was apparently applied to young bakers boy apprentices as being 'doughboys.' A pre-cursor to the doughnut.
Click to expand...
this is one of those where you realize several usages existed simultaneously... and then wonder which was first....
 
marhawkman said:
this is one of those where you realize several usages existed simultaneously... and then wonder which was first....
Click to expand...
There was the Pilsbury Dough Boy - but I don't think we had that over here in the UK did we?

I wonder if my mum got the term from Americans - but it would be more likely that she picked it up from her mum, as I can't quite picture my mum cooking with Americans. She was only in her early teens by the time the war was over, so unlikely to have been..ummm....associating with American soldiers.
 
catseye said:
There was the Pilsbury Dough Boy - but I don't think we had that over here in the UK did we?
Click to expand...
I recall the adverts (and the musical jingle) that went with the Pilsbury Dough product.
Since it's not around here any more, I'm not too sure that it was a popular product.
 
escargot said:
Around the same age as my mother, 90s?
Click to expand...
My mum was born in 1932. She was calling the dumplings 'doughboys' from my earliest recollections in the 1960s, so when she was in her mid to late 30s. She's been gone now for seven years, so I can't ask her.
 
catseye said:
There was the Pilsbury Dough Boy - but I don't think we had that over here in the UK did we?

I wonder if my mum got the term from Americans - but it would be more likely that she picked it up from her mum, as I can't quite picture my mum cooking with Americans. She was only in her early teens by the time the war was over, so unlikely to have been..ummm....associating with American soldiers.
Click to expand...
now I have to wonder how/why that character is a mascot.
 
Stormkhan said:
As far as I'm aware 'doughboy' was an American term for themselves - a plain soldier. As such, I don't know the derivation.
Click to expand...
Men where I live call each other buddy to this day which is unusual for England. It's put down to the American troops who were stationed in my town during WW2. Until a few years ago, we even had a nightclub called Buddies.
The only time I've heard the expression 'doughboy' was for the marketing of the Pillsbury Doughboy product/s but then I'm a Limey so I'm not an expert in this topic. This video looks like a good place to start. Doughboy in this context gets it's first mention as being created as a marketing campaign in 1965.

 
Last edited:
Swifty said:
Men where I live call each other buddy to this day which is unusual for England. It's put down to the American troops who were stationed in my town during WW2. Until a few years ago, we even had a nightclub called Buddies.
The only time I've heard the expression 'doughboy' was for the marketing of the Pillsbury Doughboy product/s but then I'm a Limey so I'm not an expert in this topic. This video looks like a good place to start. Doughboy in this context gets it's first mention as being created as a marketing campaign in 1965.
Click to expand...
Maybe 'Homepride Man' - 1964 might have been the forerunner of doughboy?
1713698357287.png
:bthumbup:
 
Last edited:
catseye said:
My mum was born in 1932. She was calling the dumplings 'doughboys' from my earliest recollections in the 1960s, so when she was in her mid to late 30s. She's been gone now for seven years, so I can't ask her.
Click to expand...

The term is in Wright's English Dialect Dictionary for "dumpling", recorded from Cumbria and Devon, with an example cited from Sharland's "Ways and Means in a Devonshire Village" (1885).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top