Just wondering

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

Back in the ‘50s, in Washington, D.C. and suburbs, my mother, a D.C. native,
and my grandmother, who had grown up in the area, used purse and pocketbook
interchangeably, but there was a lower limit to the size of bag that could
be called a pocketbook.  Once it got below the omnium gatherum size, it was
a purse.  A clutch was a clutch purse, not a clutch pocketbook.

 

In the Summer of 1972, I worked in Boydton, Va (on the Va-NC border) with a
local good-old boy, who referred to his billfold /wallet as his pocketbook.
He was a Korean War vet, so I suppose he was born 1928-1931.  I don’t recall
anyone else of any age presenting that usage, but it may be that once I
registered the dialectical variant, later instances didn’t catch my
attention.

 

Seán Fitzpatrick
Help the ontologically challenged realize their potential
 <http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/> http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/

 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org