frypan/frying pan

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

Both my wife and I use 'electric skillet,' but neither of us uses 'skillet'  for the non-electric thingy.  That's a frying pan--oddly not a skillet.  But if I did have to use skillet, it would be for the old, black, cast iron ones, not the shiney, stainless steel or aluminum gadgets.
Fritz

>>> faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU 02/11/04 06:49AM >>>
I have that same echo of "electric skillet" in my head, but can't
imagine where it came from, as "skillet" is one of those exotic terms
that I might have learned in the first dialectology unit in my intro
linguistics class.

Dennis R. Preston said:
>Well I'm older than both of you (so you can imagine the incredible
>authority this must have). I began saying electric frying pan when
>the silly things were introduced, reduced it to electric frypan, and
>now use frypan exclusively to refer to the electric thing. A ringer
>in my usage may have been the fact that I had both skillet and frying
>pan before the electric goodies, and, if I recall correctly, had a
>slight preference for frying pan for the oldtime cast iron type and a
>slight preference for skillet for stainless steel, aluminum, and
>other instantiations of the genre. (No, didn't have no spiders.)
>Oddly, since the electric ones looked more like the latter, I never
>used electric skillet, although I understand it exists (or existed)
>and may have an echo of it in my head.
>
>dInIs (whose echoes in his head seem to increase)
>
>
>
>Sam Clements said:
>according to OED, notes that the electric implement's launch prompted the
>use of "frypan".
>
>  Is there a bifurcation like this in AmE? What is the status of "frying pan"
>nowadays?
>
>I'm 59 and remember when "electric frypan" was a phrase in the 1960's  I
>haven't heard it since.  And I'd bet that most Americans would say the same.
>And, you needed that "electric" before the word "frypan."
>
>"Frying pan" is the only thing you hear in the last 25+ years.  IMHO.
>
>
>I'm a bit younger than you are, and I don't recall the electric
>version ever being called anything other than an "electric frying
>pan".

--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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