RANDOM HILL THAT I MAYBE WON'T DIE ON BUT FEEL LIKE SITTING ON RIGHT NOW: all English-speaking North Americans should adopt "toque" for the hat, because "beanie" is stupid, and "stocking hat" (what I was raised with) is ambiguous and clumsy to say.
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Toque is superior and I will die on that hill. And I will never forget telling a random girl in Texas that I liked her toque and my friend having to translate, saying "sorry, they're Canadian" will always be a fond memory.
(I would rather beanie refer to something cuter. perhaps getting whapped by a cat. "oh Hawthorn gave me a real beanie when I tried to move him off the couch.")
see in my lexicon “beanie” is a segmented skull cap, with or without propeller. Without, and rendered in satin, with the imprint of name and date inside, it’s a yarmulke. (Or kippah, but Ashki family slants to Yiddish.)
When I was a freshie in high school, we were given beanies to wear during freshie week. That is the only time I have ever worn a beanie. Toque is a very good term.
I read somewhere that the Bobble or Pom-Pom evolved from the Monmouth Cap having the end of the yarn wound into a little 'button' on the top when it was being finished off. This button helped pad the thing a bit when wearing it under a helmet (a common soldier would not have a custom-fitted helmet)
Even in the 14th century soldiers were thought to be dashing so it became quite the fashion to have a 'button' on the top of your woollen cap. Which grew, and grew, and GREW.
In Dickens' day, a knitted cap was often called a Welsh wig, as men stopped wearing actual wigs but still wanted a warm head
Beanie, to me, would mean like a baseball hat with a little fake rotor on top.
Stocking caps pretty much looked like putting a thick stocking on your head.
I believe what is now called a beanie was called a "knit hat," or a "close fitting knit hat."
I live in cold lands and honestly nothing confuses me more than the english words people use for things they put on their heads for warmth. feels like no one means the same thing with any of them
my personally hill is that it's tuque though, I refuse to use the english 'o' LOL
to be clear, I'm sure "toque" is technically correct in English, but it feels wrong and everyone knows what I mean if I write "tuque" so I just do that 😂
I got very France-French confused for a second because 'toque' is the way the word is spelled in France-French as well! Today i learned a new Québecois word!
(though in French the word doesn't mean wooly hat, it means chef hat, because why would language be consistent, that would be no fun)
I like the simplicity of saying hat, as a longtime Chicago and Alaska resident. Everyone knows you mean hat for the cold. No one's wearing another kind of hat in my circle
possibly just in my Iowan familect, "hat" means "ball cap" (literally a trucker hat because my brother is a trucker, but actually they always come from a seed corn company), with an outside chance of cowboy hat.
Gonna weigh in as a Quebecker here: ‘tuque' for French-Canadians and ‘toque’ or ’tuque' for anglo/allo-Canadians.
“Knit cap/knit hat” for everyone else works for me (that’s what my American characters say, because it’s always jarring to me to hear non-Canadians use that beloved word).
I first heard "beanie" specifically in reference to a knit hat being worn in the douchiest way possible (i.e. just lightly resting on their head, not covering the ears), which is probably why it gives me visceral NOPE.
Same. I honestly had no idea y’all were calling tuques beanies until your post! (I google-imaged beanie and indeed…it was tuques all the way down. TIL).
thinking about this, I'm pretty sure I produce "knit hat" for this item? or more likely just "hat" and if I meant, like, a cowboy hat or a fedora, I would specify
but I did not grow up in a climate where we had to wear hats very often
side complaint: in my head there is a distinct difference between the kind of barely-covers-the-scalp-minimal-machine-knit-hat and a plush hand-knit situation, maybe with a pompom, but this distinction was not in the language I grew up in.
In my family's idiolect, a hat like those in question was pronounced *chook,* rhymes with book. Never saw it written. Probably related to Quebeçois *tuque.*
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If more specification is required I'll specify "wooly hat".
I'm not sorry :p
(I actually will always remember that one from a Diana Wynn Jones book, Power of Three)
(these are pictures I took in the British Museum ~14 years ago~)
I love all DWJ.
THE WELSH ARE RESPONSIBLE
In Dickens' day, a knitted cap was often called a Welsh wig, as men stopped wearing actual wigs but still wanted a warm head
Stocking caps pretty much looked like putting a thick stocking on your head.
I believe what is now called a beanie was called a "knit hat," or a "close fitting knit hat."
my personally hill is that it's tuque though, I refuse to use the english 'o' LOL
(though in French the word doesn't mean wooly hat, it means chef hat, because why would language be consistent, that would be no fun)
wondrous
I hope this has been used in many children's cartoons for ridiculous effect.
“Knit cap/knit hat” for everyone else works for me (that’s what my American characters say, because it’s always jarring to me to hear non-Canadians use that beloved word).
but I did not grow up in a climate where we had to wear hats very often
Mom was from Upper Michigan, if that helps.
I propose “watch cap” for the knitted beanie thing. Very nautical.