Screwdrivers

[Pafra & Scott Catledge]

----- Original Message -----
From: Patricia S. Kuhlman <pskuhlman at JUNO.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: Screwdrivers


> On Tue, 2 Nov 1999 11:30:40 -0600 Greg Pulliam <greg at PULLIAM.ORG> writes:
> >I grew up in Mississippi and Tennessee in the 60s and 70s.  My dad is
> >from Hannibal, MO.  I call them "phillips-head" and "flat-head"
> >screwdrivers.  I don't know (as I think about it now) if I picked
> >"flat-head" up from Dad or from living in the deep and mid- south.
> >
> >-
> >Gregory J. Pulliam
> >Illinois Institute of Technology
> >Lewis Department of Humanities
> >Chicago, IL   60616
> >pulliam at iit.edu
>
> Ditto for me:  I call them  phillips-head (or just phillips) and
> flat-head.  I grew up in a rural suburban area north of Chicago in the
> 50's and 60's, but I am sure that I learned this usage from my father,
> not my peers.  My father grew up in the '20's in South Bend, Indiana.
>
> Patricia Kuhlman
> Brooklyn, NY
> pskuhlman at juno.com

I grew up in small town northern and central Florida in the 40s (Orlando
boasted of its 39,000 population).  My father was from small town SWGeorgia
& Florida panhandle; my mother was from rural central Mississippi.  Both of
them said "screwdriver" and much later on, when I saw my first screw with a
plus sign slot instead of a single slot, it was called a "Phillips" or a
"Phillips screwdriver."  "Screwdriver" by itself always meant a single slot;
phillips (with/without "screwdriver") meant a plus sign slot.  My friends in
Winter Park, FL (a Yankee paradise: three of my graduating class were born
in Winter Park; three in Indianapolis, etc.) who worked on their cars all
used the same identifiers.  "Phillips" and "screwdriver" were the common
terms used.