Do you say something's "On the counter" or "On the cupboard?"

[GreenPartyVoter]

Last edited Thu Jul 12, 2012, 11:34 AM - Edit history (2)

I drive my kids crazy when they ask me where something is because I frequently say, "on the cupboard" and they insist it can only be IN the cupboard. I often say that when I mean "on the counter" (although I use that phrase too, sometimes) and always have done, but after all these years they still don't seem to recognize that. LOL

So, am I weird or do other people say that too? (I googled the phrase "put it on the cupboard" and it apparently does exist but I'm not entirely sure if it means "put it on the counter" or put it on a free-standing cupboard like a sideboard.)

5 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	"On the counter" only.
	5 (100%)
	"On the cupboard" only.
	0 (0%)
	They are interchangeable.
	0 (0%)
	Late addition: "On the drainboard"
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Wounded Bear]

1. "On the counter"......

"In the cupboard."

Sorry, have to agree with your kids.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. They will be very pleased to hear it. :^)

[Still Blue in PDX]

3. Just curious: Anyone say "on the drainboard"?

For some odd reason, that's what my mom called the kitchen counter. Not sure if that was a Southern thing or an old timey thing, but it's one of the terms I had to learn not to say when I got old enough to talk to people outside my family.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I have heard it used, but I say dish drainer because I have one of those

contraptions. My counter isn't made to be it's own drainboard.

[hifiguy]

5. Things are ON the counter.

They are IN the cupboard.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. That's what my kids always tell me. :^)

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. LOL I am sure location has a lot to do with it. I am in New England, where

my family is mostly from although there are some down south. My mother lived in PA and NJ before she came to Maine with my dad, and I know I got some weird ways of saying things from her PA ways, so maybe this is one of them?

[eShirl]

15. multi-generational-on-both-sides Mainer here

That phrase, "on the cupboard" has got to be from out-of-state.
Maybe "cupboard" is Pennsylvanian for "sideboard" ...?

[struggle4progress]

9. depends on where it is. and mebbe on who's askin

[pipi_k]

10. This is one of those things

like when someone tells you where they live and it's ON whatever street.

Except in the UK, where they live IN whatever street. And it always sounds kind of weird to me

Anyway, ON the counter, IN the cupboard, ON the shelf...

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. I'm reading a book written by an English fellow and he keeps saying all these sailors serve "in" the

ship instead of on it.

[harmonicon]

13. Having lived in the UK for five years...

I've never once heard someone say they live "in" a street. It's always "on."

[pipi_k]

20. I've heard it many times

in movies and TV shows

[harmonicon]

24. I'll try to take a poll when I'm out tonight, if I can remember.

If you're getting this from tv and movies, I wonder if you're just misunderstanding terminology. Even in my small-ish town, people will describe where they live by area. For instance, if someone asked my friend in London where he lives, he'd say he lives "in Newcross," no matter what street in Newcross he lives on.

Of course this could be a Southern thing that I'm not familiar with and have somehow failed to notice. I live in the North of England, and the differences between North and South here are even larger than those in the US, despite the much smaller physical distance.

[csziggy]

12. I say on the counter but this brings up another question

Do you have under cabinet or under counter lights?

When we were building our house every time I went to check out under cabinet lights the sales people would talk about under counter lights. What good would the lights do if they were UNDER the counter?

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Yeah, I don't get that one either.

[harmonicon]

14. I'm with your kids on this one.

I don't know how something could be on a cupboard - things go in cupboards and on counters.

Interestingly enough, yesterday, talking to some friends, someone ask an Irish friend of ours if there were Irish-isms that hadn't left him. He suggested that one was calling a cupboard a "press", which would really throw off English people. I'd certainly never heard it before.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Hmm. I wish my Nana was still around, to see if her fther ever called cupboards a press. I don't

recall ever hearing her call it that.

[harmonicon]

22. It could be a regional or a generational thing.

My grandmother and I grew up in more-or-less the same place (a county apart), but had very different vocabulary. For instance, she'd call what I'd either call a couch or a sofa a sofa or a davenport, depending on what room it was in and what its function was.

[Shrek]

16. "On the cupboard" isn't necessarily wrong

"Where's the post-it note with my shopping list?"

"It's on the cupboard."

[hr][/hr]
That said, I agree with your kids (except it's cabinet, not cupboard).

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. So if I ask you where the vanilla is you would say, "In that cabinet over there." I could see that,

but I think the only time we used the word cabinet was when were were picking out a style for the kitchen. All the rest of the time it's cupboard.

I don't know. I mean technically I am not wrong, my counter is on the cupboards so things on the counter are also on the cupboard, just not directly. LOL

[pipi_k]

21. In that case...

if the list was on the cupboard door rather than inside it, I would finish the sentence..."It's on the cupboard door".


Actually I've learned, from living with some man or another for a long time, it's best to be very specific as to location.

Him: "Where's the mustard?"

Me: "Right fridge door, second shelf down, left hand side, in the back".

Because, "In the fridge" just doesn't cut it.


And if whatever he's looking for is (god forbid!) behind something....it doesn't exist...

[Ikonoklast]

23. "Find it your damn self, what do I look like, a detective?"