You might be a railfan if...

[SD70Dude]

In certain parts of Canada your electricity payment is called the "hydro bill".  

[Overmod]

54light15

Some words become generic, like Kleenex for tissue or positraction for limited-slip differential.

Marketing snobs call them 'proprietary eponyms', and there are some nifty ones like 'aspirin' or 'escalator' for which there are only poor 'generic equivalents' in normal speech.

And speaking of Frigidaires:  I'll see your minor poet, and raise you:

To JS/07 M 378
(This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

(Original was in Balt's Bando Blue, as seen here!)

[54light15]

Well, that beats my pair of jacks.

Yep, everyone I know (myself included) here in Toronna calls electricity Hydro. 

[Overmod]

54light15

Yep, everyone I know (myself included) here in Toronna calls electricity Hydro.

Isn't the whole utility in Quebec called Hydro?

[SD70Dude]

Overmod

54light15

Yep, everyone I know (myself included) here in Toronna calls electricity Hydro.

Isn't the whole utility in Quebec called Hydro?

Also BC Hydro, Manitoba Hydro, and the aforementioned Ontario Hydro.  Now that I think about it Alberta might be the only Province where most citizens don't call it a hydro bill.  

[Paul of Covington]

54light15

But no one except maybe ex-pat Brits would call vacuuming Hoovering. 

   Actually, I have heard it down here.

[blue streak 1]

Slang term  --  " The fibber"  Who can list what it is first ?

[Sunnyland]

My Dad used to do this, we would be coming from Maplewood, MO a suburb where MoPac ran and if we got close to crossing and gates started to go down, he would pull on side street that ran next to tracks and we would sit and watch the train. They were not as long in those days and by being on side street, we would not get in traffic mess when gates went up, we would just continue on the road to where it went under an overpass. 

SD70Dude

You are happy to get stopped at crossings.

 

[Sunnyland]

Paul of Covington

   There was a crossing near us that we could take going to Maplewood, MO (lots of good shops there "back in the day" ) MoPac would do switch moves often during the day and gates would be down. Dad would get irritated at the drivers going around them. When it was his turn to be first in line one time, a guy behind him kept honking Dad got out and went back to tell the guy "you can go around me and run the risk of getting killed but I am not moving." He pointed to the Frisco Yard a couple of blocks away and said "I work there and employees will get killed if they do something they should not so I know what a train can do if you are in the wrong place " He came back to the car and the guy stopped honking and never said a  word.  We waited maybe a total of 15-20 minutes and the switch move was done and the gates came up. A year later MoPac put an overpass there which is still there today, UP and Amtrak use it.   

 

 

SD70Dude

You are happy to get stopped at crossings.

 

 

 

 

   I once got held up at a crossing for about half an hour.  I waited and waited and finally gave up and crossed the tracks when nothing came by.