lollipop/sucker
Neal Whitman
I grew up thinking of a "lollipop" as a roughly spherical glob of
hard candy on a stick. "Sucker" to me signified any other shape of candy
on a stick; usually a disk. Over many years, I gradually became aware that
most people around me didn't conform to this rule. At first I attributed
it to the more childish sound of the word "lollipop," which was the term
they tended to avoid. A few years back I finally asked someone why she
insisted on calling lollipops suckers, and found to my surprise that she
really didn't recognize a distinction between the two words, and simply
preferred "sucker."
What say y'all? Is mine a regional distinction? Or is it an example
of a semantic narrowing, which I came up with while I was learning the
language and which never got straightened out?
(BTW, were you at my lollipop party? No? I _thought_ there was a sucker
missing!)
-verbum
J Lee Jaap
I grew up thinking of a "lollipop" as a roughly spherical glob of
hard candy on a stick. "Sucker" to me signified any other shape of candy
on a stick; usually a disk. Over many years, I gradually became aware that
most people around me didn't conform to this rule. At first I attributed
it to the more childish sound of the word "lollipop," which was the term
they tended to avoid. A few years back I finally asked someone why she
insisted on calling lollipops suckers, and found to my surprise that she
really didn't recognize a distinction between the two words, and simply
preferred "sucker."
What say y'all? Is mine a regional distinction? Or is it an example
of a semantic narrowing, which I came up with while I was learning the
language and which never got straightened out?
No difference in my language. I just say `candy', but then I seldom
talk about candy on a stick. (I grew up in southern Texas.)
--
J Lee Jaap <jaa...@tab00.larc.nasa.gov> {+1 804/864, or FTS 928}-2148
employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23665-5225
tw...@isuvax.iastate.edu
>they tended to avoid. A few years back I finally asked someone why she
>insisted on calling lollipops suckers, and found to my surprise that she
>really didn't recognize a distinction between the two words, and simply
>preferred "sucker."
> What say y'all? Is mine a regional distinction? Or is it an example
>of a semantic narrowing, which I came up with while I was learning the
>language and which never got straightened out?
Yes, at least in my experience, the distinction between 'lollipop' and 'sucker'
is based upon region. I have never been to Texas, but out East (PA
specifically), I was accustomed to hearing 'l..pop', whereas the Midwest goes
by 'sucker.' Similar to 'bag' vs. 'sack' and 'soda' vs. 'pop.'
That's all. {No .sig to speak of} -}Doogie
Bayla Singer
classified as "lollipops." The only use of "sucker" was in the phrase
denoting a disk of about 6 inches diameter, an "all-day sucker." There
were some caramels on sticks -- something called "Sugar Daddy" comes
vaguely to mind -- and of course Tootsie Pops (never called lollipops, or
anything but Tootsie Pops), with hard candy outside and a soft chocolate-
confection inside.
--bayla
Natalie Maynor
To me, "lollipop" was either an old-fashioned term (pre-1940s) or a
term used in songs like "Lollipop, Lollipop." The only term I ever used
(growing up in the Southern U.S., primarily in the '50s) was "sucker."
--
-- Natalie (may...@ra.msstate.edu)
John Thienes
>hard candy on a stick. "Sucker" to me signified any other shape of candy
>on a stick; usually a disk. Over many years, I gradually became aware that
I have to vote for the distinction between "lollipop" and "sucker" as defined by
Neal. If someone were to offer me a lollipop without showing it to me first, I
would assume that I was being offered the confection that sells by the name
Tootsie Roll Pop; it's the one with the hard candy outside and the soft
chocolate goo in the middle (I always like the grape flavor), all stuck on a
tightly rolled paper stick, and it comes covered with a wax paper like wrapper.
Now a sucker is the disk shaped candy on a paper stick with a cellophane
wrapper.
--
John Thienes john_t...@mentorg.com ...!uunet!mntgfx!johnt
Sola Gloria Deo
Kivi Shapiro
>[Sucker:] any other shape of candy on a stick; usually a disk.
In article <1992Feb26.1...@PDX.MENTORG.COM> jo...@mentorg.com (John Thienes) writes:
>[lollipop:] the one with the hard candy outside and the soft
>chocolate goo in the middle
>[sucker:] the disk shaped candy on a paper stick with a cellophane wrapper.
I'd go with this too, from an Ontario perspective. The default for
lollipops is solid candy, but they can contain filling, while suckers
are always solid. Both confections come on sticks at all times, though.
--
- Kivi jksh...@descartes.waterloo.edu
This message is in the public domain.
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Mike Oliver
> I grew up thinking of a "lollipop" as a roughly spherical glob of
>hard candy on a stick. "Sucker" to me signified any other shape of candy
>on a stick; usually a disk.
Interesting. I used "lollipop" for both, but was most familiar with
the disk shape. If I were to make a distinction, I would reverse the
usage you have suggested.
Usually when I had a spherical one it was a Tootsie pop, and that's
what I thought of it as.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Oliver
UUCP:...!{ucbvax,{hao!cepu}}!ucla-cs!math.ucla.edu!oliver
ARPA: oli...@math.ucla.edu
Richard A. O'Keefe
> In article <67...@ut-emx.uucp> ver...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Neal Whitman) writes:
> >
> > I grew up thinking of a "lollipop" as a roughly spherical glob of
> >hard candy on a stick. "Sucker" to me signified any other shape of candy
> >on a stick; usually a disk. Over many years, I gradually became aware that
For me the disc on a stick is the definitive lollipop; I've never called
a roughly spherical glob of hardy candy on a stick anything because I've
never seen one. If I heard someone speak in this context of a "sucker",
I'd cross-reference to "all-day sucker", which is a roughly spherical glob
of hard candy which is about as big as a child can hold comfortably in the
mouth and has no stick, so I'd interpret "sucker" as "a largish hard solid-
all-the-way-through sweet to be sucked rather than licked or chewed".
Lollipops are for licking!
--
I am writing a book on debugging aimed at 1st & 2nd year CS students using
C/Modula/Pascal-like languages. Please send suggestions (other than "you
_must_ cite "C Traps and Pitfalls") to o...@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au
Bayla Singer
>For me the disc on a stick is the definitive lollipop; I've never called
>a roughly spherical glob of hardy candy on a stick anything because I've
>never seen one. If I heard someone speak in this context of a "sucker",
>I'd cross-reference to "all-day sucker", which is a roughly spherical glob
>of hard candy which is about as big as a child can hold comfortably in the
>mouth and has no stick, so I'd interpret "sucker" as "a largish hard solid-
>all-the-way-through sweet to be sucked rather than licked or chewed".
>Lollipops are for licking!
--For me, the sphere without a stick would be a "jawbreaker" if large, a
simple "sourball" if smaller. An all-day sucker would be a large-diameter
(six inches or so) disk on a stick. Most lollipops were disks, but there
were occasional spherical ones. A separate class entirely was "Tootsie
pops," (brandname) hard-candy spheres with soft chocolate-confection
centers, each on a stick and wrapped in a paper covering which told you the
flavor of the hard shell.
--bayla
Claudia Kale
Well, in the various places I lived as a youth, "lollipop" meant
any hard candy on a stick, be it homogeneous or filled with something
different to/from the coating; this category included the fruit
flavoured hard candy types, the Tootsie Pop types, gobstopppers on
a stick, the flat disk-shaped types, etc. "Suckers" were a subset of
"lollipops", meaning only the flat disk-shaped candy on a stick
(or those bizarre starched string loops associated with Doctor's
Office suckers, the ones which always went limp immediately upon
contact with moisture).
David A. Johns
Western Massachusetts, '50s. Any kind of candy on a stick (i.e., any
shape) is a lollipop. The only use of sucker is in the phrase "all day
sucker", but I never knew anyone that actually had one. I think I knew
that term from TV or comic books.
When I moved to the Midwest (Chicago, then rural Wisconsin) in the mid
'60s, all I heard was sucker, no lollipops at all. I think that's also
true here in Florida, but I don't talk about them much these days :).
David Johns
John Fisher
-verbum
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