The Wash-a-meteria: Coming Clean and Eating, Too!

This summer, after a bevy of guests had departed, I mentioned to a neighbor that I intended to take the soiled linens to the washeteria in town to wash them instead of trying to do all of that laundry in my small washing machine. Quizzically, she said, “Washeteria? Do you mean laundromat?” I was surprised to find she had never heard of the word “washeteria.” After a brief discussion, I figured it might be a regional difference in vocabulary, as I grew up in Louisiana and she in New York. (Note: when my daughter was young, she referred to the self-service laundry place as the “wash-a-meteria.” See “At the Wash-a-meteria: A True Story” on Be-Lied.)

So, I did what I do when researching words and pulled out my Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Much to my surprise, the OED defines “Laundromat” as “The proprietary name of a brand of automatic washing machines,” not as a generic place where one goes to pay to wash one’s clothes. The first usage which the OED cites is from 1943 identifying “Laundromat” as “Domestic electric washing (laundering) machines; also, by extension, a launderette.” (“Launderette” is the British usage.)

The OED also defines “washeteria” first as a “launderette,” “An establishment providing automatic washing machines for the use of customers.” The second definition reads, a “car washeteria: a self-service car-washing establishment.” Thank goodness for brevity in vocabulary!

Then, I did what most people do these days when researching and Googled “laundromat,” hoping for a history of the Service Mark. I got links for the 2019 movie, The Laundromat. I got listings of laundromats near me. I found a link to the Persimmon Café in downtown Charleston, which consists of a laundromat tucked inside a café, so patrons can eat while their clothes wash. (More on that concept later.) I discovered after some dedicated searching that I wasn’t too far off in my hypothesis regarding the regional origins of the words.

At this point, I must shamefully confess that I used a source, Wikipedia, which I try not to use if I can find other sources, but I found some helpful information on the history of “Self-service laundry,” specifically washeterias and laundromats in this article.

In April, 1934, J. F. Cantrell opened “the first commercial washateria (laundromat) in the United States,” in Fort Worth, Texas, according to Texas Landmarks and Legacies (cited by Wikipedia). Cantrell offered the short-term rental of four steam-powered washing machines by the hour, hence a Southern rooting of “washateria.”

In the early 1940s in New York City, Harry Greenwald discovered a demand for self-service washing machines. He invented a coin meter which he pitched to Westinghouse. Westinghouse agreed to put his coin meter exclusively on their washing machines and trademarked the word, “Laundromat,” providing a northern rooting of that word. (Greenwald’s son, Ken, remembers his father’s role in creating the “Laundromat” in a post on the blog, Word Wizard.) Greenwald’s son, Ken, remembers his father adopting the word “laundromat” based on the idea of the automat which dispenses food.

“Washeteria” is adapted from the idea of cafeteria, a type of self-service place, with the “-teria” meaning “a suffix used commercially to form the name of self-service retail or catering establishments,” attached to “café” meaning coffee, although according to the OED, a cafeteria has evolved from a coffee house to “a restaurant, esp. a self-service restaurant.” With marriage between cafeteria and washeteria—automat and laundromat--in mind, I was highly amused to find the Persimmon Café in downtown Charleston with a laundromat in the back.

An example of the usage of “washeteria” in the OED includes the following wry complaint from the Sunday Times on July 17, 1966: “Now that we have grown accustomed to the blandishments of . . . something called Washeterias, the next step may be drive-in laundries.” Sonic, here is a business idea for you. Your customers can super-size their food and drink orders to include laundry services, so your skating servers can serve up laundry along with sodas. Also, if someone spills food while eating in the car, laundry facilities are close at hand.

People in the American South go to the washeteria for self-service clothes laundering, people in other areas of the United States go to the laundromat, and people in Britain go to the launderette. A self-service laundry facility by any other name makes the clothes smell just as sweet!

Boobery--Scary, Maybe

Booby!

What image springs to mind when you read that word? (Remember, this blog is family friendly!) Hold on to your underwear because below I have inserted a picture of a booby.

(Source https://what-when-how.com/birds/blue-footed-booby-birds/ through Google Images)

As you can see, this booby happens to be a blue-footed one. But it’s a bird, you say, “any of several sea birds” as my American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHDEL) defines it, not a booby, a foolish person, wearing blue shoes. (Below, see a booby wearing blue shoes, blue suede shoes, to be sure!)

This booby-in-blue-suede-shoes’s newfound interest in the word “booby” sprang from a recent OED On-line Word of the Day entry, “boobery,” defined as “The action or fact of doing something foolish, especially making foolish mistakes; foolishness, stupidity. Also: an instance of this; a foolish act or thing.” The entry goes on to note that foolish people considered as a class is a somewhat rare usage these days.

While I had heard of the word “booby” with its various meanings—except the bird one--I had never heard of “boobery” and had great fun imagining of what a “boobery” might consist. In its true meaning, the boobery would be the hoi polloi, the plebes, the common people, but the word has more potential for fun.

In the interest of having some fun with the word, let’s separate “booby” from its suffix, “-ery.” My AHDEL defines “-ery” as “1. A place for: bakery. 2. A collection or class: finery. 3. A state or condition: slavery. 4. Act or practice: bribery. 5. Characteristics or qualities of: snobbery.”

Let’s deliberate upon the various meanings of the suffix attached to the stem. “Booby” plus “-ery”:

1. a place for boobies. Using the definition of “booby” which I declined to provide above, a bra can be considered a “boobery.” You could also consider Hooters a boobery. In addition, you would find avian blue-footed boobies in a boobery (compare rookery) but I hope not in Hooters.

2. a collection of boobies. Considering current politics, all sides of the political spectrum might consider the others as “the boobery.”

3. a state or condition. Feeling foolish? Prone to committing foolish acts? You must be “in a boobery,” not in a funk or but maybe in a New York state of mind.

4. act or practice. Find yourself with old friends or other mischief-makers? Resign yourself to boobery. My siblings and I frequently lapse into boobery when we get together.

5. characteristics of qualities of. When you have boobies acting boobish, they are engaging in boobery. 

“Boobery” could also describe trick-or-treaters on Halloween or fans of Boo Boo Bear.

If you find yourself among the boobery, beware of booby traps although it might not be too bad to win a booby prize. Now I must conclude these boobish thoughts and go hand wash my boobery.

Fun With Words: Mellifluously and fellifluously speaking

What do you do for fun? In the summer, any number of outdoor activities are available--water sports, such as peeing in the pool or lake, for example. In the winter, avoiding the yellow snow when snow shoeing or cross country skiing keeps you alert in the zesty air. Some people, however, may prefer more sedentary activities. I, for one, enjoying saying words aloud just for the sweet feeling of the word rolling around my on tongue and hearing the pleasing tones. On June 16, 2013, I posted a blog, "Thingamabob (Cha-Cha-Cha)” about such sport. While “thingamabob” remains my favorite word to say, I mention in passing a few other words. One of them, “mellifluous,” is probably my second favorite word to say. I have even dreamt about the word.

“Mellifluous” begins with a satisfying nasal sound, “m-m-m-m,” the sound many people make to express pleasure or enjoyment, particularly regarding food. Bologna sandwiches for lunch? M-m-m! What’s that I smell cooking for supper? Mashed potato jambalaya! M-m-m! Next, the sound moves to the short “e” in the middle of the mouth, then the tongue presses behind the teeth for the fluid “l” sound, then the sound goes back to the middle of the mouth for the short “i” sound. Then the teeth rest on the bottom lip for a nice fricative (providing a rest in the gliding sounds).

Then the tongue slips up for another fluid “l,” which shifts to a long “u” sound, another sound used to express satisfaction or enjoyment (ooh-ooh, we’re going swimming!), before shifting to the back of the mouth for the short “u” and ending at the front of the mouth with a sibilant “s.” The word rolls for the first part of pronunciation, then takes a pause at the “f” before gliding to an indefinite ending. “Mellifluous” does not rocket or bounce around the mouth like “thingamabob” does. It wades through the space in your oral cavity, at a slow pace, as if wading through warm water.

Now that the fun of saying the word is done, what does the word mean? Actually, the meaning closely follows the fun of speaking it. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHDEL), “mellifluous” means “Having a pleasant and fluid sound.” It is almost onomatopoeia. The word comes from two Latin words, “mell-“ which means “honey” and “fluous” which means flowing—flowing honey. Sweet.

I have long enjoyed the word “mellifluous.” It is a soothing word, so imagine my surprise when I received the word “fellifluous” as the “OED Online Word of the Day” recently. While “mellifluous” is in my AHDEL, “fellifluous” is not. When I looked for “fellifluous” in the Merrian-Webster Dictionary associated with my spellcheck, I got the message, “The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary.” Sadly, my set of the Oxford English Dictionary is on the shelves (yes, plural) in Folly Beach. However, the Oxford English Dictionary on-line entry defines the word as “flowing with bile; (figurative) bitter, rancorous.” The OED on-line entry does mark the word as “now rare,” although it supplies a literary reference from 2007, which involves “a tipsy fellifluous Irishman.”

I did know that “fell” means “of an inhumanly cruel nature; fierce” or “capable of destroying; lethal.” “Fellifluous” begins with the fricative “f,” starting with friction. Even though the rest of the word has the honey-sweet sounds of “mellifluous,” “fellifluous” when you are saying it never recovers from its derisive start—fie! phooey! and other “f-words” that I will not list in this family-friendly blog.

Today has been a rainy day. Now that I have finished writing this blog, I think I will indulge in a round of saying fun words. Diaphonous!