to think I have strange vocab

[pinkhappy]

I recently moved to a new city. I had some new friends round and discovered that not one of them had heard of a (criminal) fence. This is a word that everyone I knew before would have known.

Then I was listening to the radio and they used the word antimacassar which I had never heard of. Turns out everyone in my new city knows it.

So, a poll. Do you know

1. what a (criminal) fence is only

2. what an antimacassar is only

3. both

4. neither

1. I have never heard fence used other than what you put up to enclose your property (or similar) or maybe at a push it could relate to the sport of fencing but even that would probably sound odd. However my grandparents were hot on furniture protection, grandad having loved brylcream (sp?) in his younger days.

1. They were on a lot of my elderly aunts' settees (no, they weren't called sofas)

And maybe 3, as I know what a fence is in terms of dodgy dealings. The criminal bit threw me off.

3

3

It was 4.
But after a quick Google it's now a 3.

Both. If told a group of people only knew either the word fence in a hsg criminal context or the word antimacassar, I would've bet good money every time that they knew the former rather than the latter. I grew up in East London though....

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3

1
Off to google antimacawhatsit

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Grew up in London. Fence in that context is pretty ordinary, I can’t imagine anyone I grew up with wouldn’t know what it meant. I know about antimacassars only from very old relatives, and can remember them in their houses back in the day. Haven’t actually seen one for many a moon.

1 (I think...just going to go check I have it right!)

I've already looked up what an antimacassar is - my nanna had them on her chairs but didn't know that is what they are called!

4

1

3 - both.

3, although antimacassar is a very old word.

3

I'm fairly well read with a decent vocab but I'm a 4!

1. Both normal words for me (mid fifties).

Never knowingly met a Fence but have watched far too many episodes of Minder/The Bill etc, and my grandparents had antimacassars on their sofas.

Plus as a kid at school we used to joke, "Have you seen my antimacassar?"
"No, but I've met your uncle."
Or something like that. 😂

I know what both are.

1

How do people not know what a fence is? That seems very odd.

Never heard of antimacassar.

@RavingAnnie

1

How do people not know what a fence is? That seems very odd.

Never heard of antimacassar.

In what context do you think is know what one is??

To those posters referencing the wheely, rolly oojahs, you're talking Pollux: they are castors, with an O, not 'casters'.

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