beyond the pail

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 04:25 PM 3/7/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>At 1:58 PM -0500 3/7/03, Duane Campbell wrote:
>>On Fri, 7 Mar 2003 09:37:11 -0800 Anne Gilbert <avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET>
>>writes:
>>
>>>  While "bucket" and "creek" are more usual(nowadays, at least), in My
>>>  Fair
>>>  State of Washington, I've actually *heard* "pail" and "crick" --
>>
>>I have been watching this thread with hope of enlightenment, in vain so
>>far. Are you people saying that there is something non-standard about
>>"pail"? I have always used "pail" and "bucket"  (PA and NY) as exact
>>synonyms and never considered that there was anything regional about it.
>
>Are you sure you use them as exact synonyms?  I have both words in my
>active lexicon (NY), but if I'm going to build sand castles on the
>beach (LI), I will bring my (plastic) pail (with or without shovel),
>but not a bucket.  I think (although with less confidence) that
>wooden ones are buckets rather than pails for me ("the old oaken
>bucket" and all that), while metal ones can be either.  Of course,
>this reflects the general tendency (cf. Breal, Bolinger, et al.) that
>true synonymy tends to be minimized and that distinct words tend to
>carve out distinct referential niches in a given dialect or idiolect,
>even when these vary from speaker to speaker--remember our earlier
>discussion of the cheap "vace" vs. the costly "vahz".  (And this
>doesn't get into the question of why my grandfather kicked the bucket
>without kicking the pail.)
>
>Larry

When we do these surveys in undergrad classes, the students are adamant
about the distinctions of place of use, contents, composition, etc. of
'pail' and 'bucket', even though the regional boundaries are increasingly
fuzzy.  Same goes for 'sofa' and 'couch', etc.