beyond the pail

[Anne Gilbert]

Larry:

> 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.)

You're probably right that they're not "exact" synonyms, but they tend to
overlap in usage. . . .at least to some extent.  I'll have to do some
thinking about this, because it's basically something I've not really
thought *about*.
Anne G