frypan/frying pan

[Dennis R. Preston]

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
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