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Oct 24
What do you call this thing, so commonly found at supermarkets around the world?
I grew up calling it a “shopping cart.” Someone recently referred to it as a “wagon.” Now I hear “trolley” on this website. Is this another geographic difference? Or am I reading too much into it now?
Oct 24, 2005 @ 10:26:06
Here in Australia, we call them shopping trolleys. I gather in England they do as well. So it may be a geographic thing.
Altho people hereabouts also call them shopping carts too.
Make of it what you will.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 10:30:53
I’ve lived in TX, TN, NY, NJ, and FL. I’ve never heard any real cultural differences between what different areas call ’shopping carts’. It’s always just shopping cart.
To be honest, the only times I’ve heard anyone call them anything other than shopping carts, the person in question was either trying to be funny, or being stupid.
Maybe it’s either a west coast thing (SF has trolleys, maybe they’re just used to the word?) or possibly an age group thing. I dunno.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 12:12:12
It’s a buggy. Everyone knows that. This is common argument that I have with my wife. I’m from Georgia and she’s from Pennsylvania.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 13:58:15
I’m from New Orleans and I grew up calling them baskets. It’s not universal but it’s fairly common down there.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 14:23:39
I grew up in Northern VA and we always called them shopping carts. I now live in Southwest VA and everyone here seems to call them shopping buggies. I checked with a friend at work from New Orleans and she always called them buggies as well. Seems like more of a Southern thing to me.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 14:54:41
Shopping cart or basket. My family’s from the south and I graduated high school and worked in Northern Virginia.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 15:37:49
Representing the west coast, and having worked at Kmart for several years back in my younger days, They are called shopping carts 90% here of the time. Sometimes this is shortened to cart, as in “go get the carts in from the parking lot” and it is sometimes referred to as a basket. This usually only if you have the shopping cart in hand as in “throw a package of cookies in the basket”
Oct 24, 2005 @ 15:59:35
Cart or basket (North Carolina).
Oct 24, 2005 @ 17:55:34
Like Andrew, I’m an Aussie and I’ll be damned if I stop calling the thing with one buggered wheel anything but a shopping trolley. (Same deal with biscuits and lollies.)
And the carry thing for smaller trips and express lanes is what I call a shopping basket.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 18:30:38
It’s a geo thing. (I used to love doing this stuff back in college linguistics courses!) They call ‘em trolleys in the UK too. I can’t get Robin to use the expression “shopping cart”…
Oct 24, 2005 @ 19:22:04
We called them “suicide highway racers”
Oct 24, 2005 @ 19:43:23
Illinois here, and it’s a shopping cart.
Oct 24, 2005 @ 20:45:11
I would assume that shopping cart is the most widely accepted term. Almost every major online retailer uses “shopping cart” to refer to the queue of items you’ve selected to purchase.
Oct 25, 2005 @ 07:28:17
I am from OKC and they were invented here. We call them shopping carts. In fact our local museum has a display devoted to them.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi995.htm
http://www.designboom.com/history/cart.html
Oct 25, 2005 @ 08:10:09
I’m originally from southwest Virginia, so it is a buggy to me.