My brain has the hardest time differentiating between channel locks and vise-grips, and I will often say one name when I mean the other.

4 hours ago, SFC Snuffy said:

channel locks

I think this term was invented by folk who couldn't remember the proper name, "Water Pump Pliers", they don't lock. Vise grips do lock so why isn't in the name? 

Messy is a living language thing. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

We have quenchants; but do we have slackants/slakents?

Creeping into George Carlin territory.

Pnut

I always heard them called slip jaw pliers and locking pliers. Channel lock and Vise grip are both tool manufacturers. But over time people just refer to the tool by the company name. Like hex wrenches are called Allen wrenches. Most people will ask for a Kleenex instead of a tissue and i will bet that a lot of us here remember the refrigerator being refereed to as the Frigidaire.  

Or just the Fridge.

The place I work has an awful habit of referring to things by manufacturer names. Several of my coworkers' minds were blown when I told them that the "ring-feeder" holding the turret tool ring in place was, in fact made by the German company Ringfeder. Even more so when I (helpfully) explained that not all couplers are Lovejoys (ours are actually provided by a different manufacturer, I think). It's an older facility - been in operation since 1942 - and while most of the equipment in my building is more modern than that, terminology gets handed down in a generational fashion. Even when it's wrong.

36 minutes ago, SFC Snuffy said:

terminology gets handed down in a generational fashion. Even when it's wrong.

I worked in a couple rubber refineries and the screw mixers were always called by the name of an old manufacturer, Banbury.  The ones made by other companies were even called Banburys. I guess it is the same as a hot tub being called a Jacuzzi.

Pnut

Or gypsum-based wallboard being sheetrock.

The verb "to slake" survives in "slaked lime", the older name for calcium hydroxide, produced by slaking quicklime (calcium oxide) with water. 

I put in a could of drops of that oil to make machine coolant, gives it a milky-white look. no more mosquito's :-)

It's probably not that healthy, but it preserves the water much better over time. Also helps against freezing.

On 9/24/2019 at 4:55 PM, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

Or just the Fridge.

I remember it being called the icebox. The ice company provided each house with a four-way sign to put in the front room window. Depending on how it was placed, the upright number either read 25, 50, 75, or 100, referring to how many pounds of ice you wanted from the ice man who cruised the streets in his truck every few days. If you ran short, you drove down to the ice plant and brought home a chunk to hold you over. But that was when our phone number was "803-J", so it was a while ago.

Mr. Picker,

Refrigerators are still called iceboxes in St. Louis, and probably much of the mid-west.

Regards,

SLAG.

 

I remember my mother calling it the icebox when I was a kid. I never realized why until reading this. She will be 81 years old October 7th 

Channel lock pliers vs Vise grips:  Channel lock pliers do not lock.  The vise grips are a pair of pliers with a bolt in one leg, and can lock in place. 

I've had kids patiently explain to me they're called ice boxes because that's where the ice maker is.  DUH! Come ON guys, get with the times will ya! 

We didn't have an icebox as far as I remember but I do remember the iceman driving past every couple days. The milkman came by every morning and the icecream man on hot afternoons. 

When we were going camping I got to go out, flag down the Iceman and buy a 25 lb. block for the Coleman. I was proud as can be when I got big enough to carry a block without help. The iceman brought the block in till then of course. Nice guy.

Frosty The Lucky.

I once heard that Vise grips were originally designed for black smiths, true or not i dont know just something i seem to recall. Sounds good though. 

I am not old enough to remember milk men or ice men or grocery delivery, which seems to be making a come back now, but i do remember rotary phones, party lines, record players, 8 tracks and the like. 

My daughter came over one day with a necklace on that had one of those little plastic thingies that we used to use to put in 45 records so they would play on the record player where a 33 was meant to go. She had no clue as to what is was just thought it looked cool on the necklace.

Channel lock: tongue and groove pliars, vice grip: locking pliars. Actually had to refresh my vice grip terminology. 

I had a truck driver deliver a commercial air handling unit to a job site once. The pallet was screwed down to the trailer bed with some lag bolts as well as straps over the unit. I live in upper Midwest US, this gentleman driver from the southern parts US asked me for a "thumb wre-ench" (2 syllables but smooth). I told him I wasn't sure what that was. He said, "Well, that's one there in yer back pocket idjet. Seen it when you climbed down from the fork truck." Makes sense, I guess, since you operate an open end adjustable wrench (1 syllable) or "crescent wrench" with your thumb. 

17 hours ago, Frosty said:

I've had kids patiently explain to me they're called ice boxes because that's where the ice maker is

Good one.

I lived in an apartment some 25 years ago that had an original icebox still setup near the entry.  An insulated container, it had two compartments separated by a thin metal wall.  The outer compartment had a door to outside the apartment where the iceman could make regular deliveries, and the inner space had a door inside the apartment for food that needed to be kept cold.  Thought this was quite a clever system.

I remember an ice box on the back porch of my uncle Glen's farm house in Ohio, when I was about six. Never knew what it was till in my teens. Boy this thread has dredged up some long buried memories.