The doobly, the podger, the twitcher or the melly?
The remote control seems to have inspired a great creative flowering of new words in colloquial UK English:
“The English Project cites “doobly”, but there are an awful lot more, including “podger”, “blipper”, “twitcher” and “melly”. A friend of mine calls it the “ponker”. Someone in the Guardian office says “didge”. My mother used to call it “the clicker”, although that was back when they actually did click, and “controller” is our family term, with “fat controller” being a variant for the larger Freeview clicker, which is covered in packing tape because somebody – not me – lost the little door that holds the batteries in.”
“According to web forums, “clicker” is extremely common, as is “flipper”, “changer” and the rather charming “the buttons”. “Zapper” is often used, while “Frank” (geddit?) is a by no means isolated derivative.”
I wonder if a similar research was done in the USA.
