Sunday, December 23, 2007

A matter of vocabulary

"He went to the coat rack by the back door and put on his fleece jacket, zipped it up, and popped a toboggan on his head."--Jan Karon, Shepherds Abiding

What on earth, I thought. Visions of Mr. Canoehead?

OK, no, obviously that must mean something different in North Carolina.

From FreeDictionary.com:

Noun 1. toboggan cap - a close-fitting woolen cap; often has a tapering tail with a tassel
ski cap, stocking cap


Oh--a toque!

Gotcha.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

I discovered this when moving to North Carolina from Michigan when I was a girl. I could not figure out why they kept talking about wearing giant sleds. And in a place where there was hardly any snow!

Katie said...

It makes sense if you call it a toboggan cap, but not if you just say a toboggan!! My gosh that would be heavy!

Anonymous said...

Oh, how funny! I had no idea they used the word like that there. An interesting little fact. :-)

~Kelsey

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