Mix up or pick n mix

[undercoverhero74]

Please help settle a debate. I was reminiscing with a friend about the 50p mix up I used to get a kid at the local corner shop. She laughed at me and said it’s not called a mix up is called a pick n mix. I correctly told her that a pick n mix is the overly expensive sweets you pay for per 100g and comes in the snazzy stripy bags at the cinema whereas a mix up is a small selection of penny sweets that come In a small white bag. She completely disagrees and now I’m unsure if I’m wrong.
YANBU it’s definitely called a mix up and your friend is a Wally.
YABU it’s a pick n mix and you have been saying it wrong your whole life.

What @MrsFrisbyMouse said. And I was a 70s child (South Coast).

I think the actual name mix up or mix was clearly regional, but obviously describes the same thing. I would say that the big difference between a mix up and a pick and mix is........A mix(up) were sweets that had an individual price per sweet, usually 1P each eg Fruit salad or absolutely horrible Black Jacks, tiny Jelly bears were 3 for 1P. They were either pre-selected by shop keeper in a little bag, or you chose your own to the value of available change you had (might only be 7P) A pick n mix conversely is usually sold by weight. I was born very late 60s in West Country and we called it a mix up.

I am in my early 50's and when I was little we bought mix-ups from the corner shop. Some shops had them pre-made in little white bags, other's had a glass display under the serving counter with all the boxes of penny sweets in there and you could point to the ones you wanted up to the value of how much money you had. Some sweets were 4 to the penny, tiny little square jellies a bit like wine gums.

My top favourites were fizzle sticks, cola bottles and chocolate mice.

These shops also usually had jars of the premium sweets on a shelf behind the counter and the shopkeeper would weigh out a quarter of bon bons etc on a large weighing scales and tip them into a brown paper bag.

We usually opted for the mix ups as they felt like better value to us at the time.

My grannny's best friend ran one of these shops in my childhood and she used to let us go behind the counter to the penny sweets and make our own mix-ups - she was very trusting!!

She also sold ice-cream sliders - a block of ice-cream and she would cut off slices with a big knife like an icing palette and sandwich it with wafers. Flavours were banana, raspberry ripple, neopolitan and vanilla. These were a Sunday afternoon treat if one of the grown-ups were feeling generous.

I never heard of or saw pick and mix until the larger multiplex cinemas opened and I was a teen by then

We called them Penny mixtures.

"Penny mixture" in a wee white poke from corner shop.

"Pick n mix" from Woolworths in large striped paper bag paid for by the weight.

Mixture and Maxture

Oh I so miss those sweetie shops run in a spare room of a house with a little old lady owner, rows of boxes of sweets behind the counter and we would ask for a 10p mix up. All those little shops just stopped existing in the 90s.

It was called a mix up where I am from in the 80's and 90's. In our local shops the tubs of sweets were out on the shelves. You picked up a white paper bag and filled it yourself, with the sweets you wanted. If the shopkeeper knew and trusted you, you could just tell them how much you put in there '20p, 30p or whatever' and handover the money. If you were a 'new kid' or from a bit of a dodgy family, the shopkeeper would empty the bag back out into a tub on the counter and count the sweets back into the bag.

My partner is from a different area of the country to me and they also used the term mix up there.

Pick and mix is what you get at the cinema. Bigger bag, paid for by weight.

I think you've got 'mix'd up' it's definitely pick n mix

You are correct! It's a "mix up" the one you got from the local corner shop that was run by your friends Dad in my case. You say I've got 20p and he fills up a wee paper bag. A pick and mix is an overpriced bunch of sweeties from Woolworths etc

YANBU, they shopkeeper picked them so it’s a mix up.

Mix up is boxes of sweets costing 0.5-3p each that you choose and the lady in the shop puts them in a white paper bag. They are generally 10-20p and consist of white mice, shrimps, bananas, fish&chips, blackjacks, cola bottles, strawberry laces, fried eggs, teeth, dummies etc.

Pic “n” mix is big plastic tubs with shovels in that you scoop into a shiny or patterned bag and pay by weight.

Back in the dark ages in the North East (1970s) it was a 10p mix served by a lovely lady called Muriel in the local post office. She was absolutely brilliant, and could accommodate all needs (“10p mix but no pink shrimps please”) and every bag was individually created for each customer. Such a patient lady, with a great sense of humour. 50 years on, and I can still picture her and that counter of joy!

Yanbu being unreasonable, totally different things. From Scotland and if would be a mix up.

Mix-up! In my shop you could point to what items you wanted (the sweets were behind a clear screen) or parrot like I did, every Friday, "Please may I have a 10p mix-up with anything except bubblegum or chewing gum".

A mix up is from the newsagents where there's a cost like 20p, 30p 50p... etc and a pick n mix is where you choose and scoop like the cinema or Candy King.

Pick and mix

I'd say it's pick 'n' mix because whether you put them into the small white plastic bag or the shop keeper did, the individual sweets (like fruit salads and jolly ranchers etc.) were selected or picked by someone and put into the bag in a random quantity and then sold on as 'ready made' pick 'n' mix.

That's what I think.