Quick cultural test
October 24th, 2005 -- by Augie De Blieck Jr.
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?
October 24th, 2005 at 10:26 am
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.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:30 am
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.
October 24th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
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.
October 24th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
I’m from New Orleans and I grew up calling them baskets. It’s not universal but it’s fairly common down there.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:23 pm
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.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Shopping cart or basket. My family’s from the south and I graduated high school and worked in Northern Virginia.
October 24th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
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”
October 24th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
Cart or basket (North Carolina).
October 24th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
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.
October 24th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
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”…
October 24th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
We called them “suicide highway racers”
October 24th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Illinois here, and it’s a shopping cart.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
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.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:28 am
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
October 25th, 2005 at 8:10 am
I’m originally from southwest Virginia, so it is a buggy to me.