My grandma calls the trunk of the car "the turtle". She used to ask me to get the groceries out of the turtle.

Do you know anyone who says that?

What other out-dated language can you think of to refer to automobiles or their parts?

British terms:

Bonnet - Hood
Boot - Trunk

quote:

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Pop the turtle

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This just sounds nasty for some reason...

Post this thread on General or Rivalries and get a totally different result.

My grandmother says turtle, too.

I wonder where it came from.

I bet it has something to do with pushing a hoop with a stick....

Hahaha. Or maybe she's so old she had a flintstone car with an actual turtle for a trunk.

Or maybe it has to do with the popping sound you get when you run over a turtle.

There is an old term with antique cars that I've run across called a "Turtle Deck". I can't find a decent definition though. I think it has something to do with the rear cowl or alternative to the traditional trunk.

The early cars used to have, literally, trunks for storage on the rear.



or some had 'turtle decks' with storage or rumble seat.

it is because the "trunk" is internal, like a turtle in its shell.

I've heard (at the antique machine shop I used to work at) that they were originally called a "turtle shell trunk" and must have been shortened to "turtle" to differentiate them from an actual "trunk"

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 10/27/2010 5:33p).]

Consider me educated

Seatbelts were called onion restrainers; which was the style at the time.

In this part of the world, we call the 1/2 tons "pickups". They have to be at least a 2-ton before we called them trucks.

But it seems that usage is fading away, and now they're all "trucks".

My wife also gets mad at me when I ask her to get something out of the pocket. She insists it's a glove compartment. Having been married for several years, I'm smart enough not to ask her just how the hell long has it been since she wore gloves at all, much less stored them in the pocket.

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 10/28/2010 9:11a).]

I've noticed the pickup thing, too and use the same definitions...

...but it's "glove box"

My dad calls it a Car Pocket.