American friends, terminology please!

[winterbadger]

A British editing colleague has asked me what we colonials (my word :-) call these creatures most commonly. I'm at a loss to help her, as I don't know I've ever called them anything in particular.

Comments

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

I was going to say woodlice, but then I scrolled down. Does she mean rolly-polys/pillbugs? (to be honest, I've no idea how to spell roly-poly, just how to say it)

(edit to add: my grandmother called pillbugs "doodlebugs" when she was a kid in N. Ga. in the 1920s and 30s)

[winterbadger]

Well, to be thorough, her question was:

"Could you tell me if wood louse is used in America or would it be better known as a pill bug or sow bug? Merriam-Webster is a bit vague."

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure that pill bugs and wood lice are relaly the same thing. If I were generally trying to cover the US, tho, I would go with pill bug. All other variants seem to have regional biases (I think - I have vague recollections of a conversation about this back in college)

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I can't help here, but I just love discussions of wood louse name alternatives. Yes, I am sad, but there are so many variant names:600 in the UK, I think, so I am agog to know what they call them on your side of the pond.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Thats a perennial "what do you call this = suggest which part of the US you're from" type question in those silly memes that go round, apparently many of you nice people call them pillbugs or similar. I guess they must be much more common Stateside ot have garnered so much attention, woodlice kind of slip past my attention... :)

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

"Umm, ewww."

;)

I have NO clue.

[ethanninis-mom.livejournal.com]

As odd as it sounds, we always called them "potato bugs" don't know if that is because we mixed them up with something, or what. Maybe its just because we are weird and from Ohio (in this case when I say "we" I mean Jennifer and me, not Peter and me)

[kmusser]

I definitely call them rolly-pollies, but I think that's a central U.S. thing, not sure if that term is as common on the east coast - and that's just for pillbugs, not woodlice in general.

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

That's what I grew up calling them, and I was born and raised in NC (by a Southern mother and an AirForceBrat dad who lived in SC and VA)

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

And me, in VA

[ticktockmary.livejournal.com]

Roly-poly. But pillbug sounds a bit better if you're writing about it. And I also said doodle-bug. My grandmother was from Birmingham, AL so maybe it was a southern grandma thing for me and reabhecc.

[wolfette]

around this part of Scotland they're known as "slaters" :-)

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Out here in the Wild, Wild West -- at least when I was a kid -- we called them potato bugs (most commonly) or pill bugs (a bit less commonly).

[histoire68.livejournal.com]

The one on the left is a roly-poly - that's what we called them in Louisiana. The other one, not so sure. I think they're different bugs. Lord knows I'd never have played with roly-polies as a kid if they had been called woodlice!