Thanks to a combination of a non-working online check-in system, kiosks that wouldn’t read passports, understaffed airport counters, and the cruel, unrelenting march of time, I got bumped from the flight I was supposed to take to London last night and instead have to get up in like three hours to get on the one I’m supposed to take. I should get to sleep, but, as always, you deserve a Cold Start. And the coldest start you shall have!
I’d like to make this one short while also providing you with the important information you require, which, today, I think will be to remind you that there are multiple terms for driving your car in very tight, gleefully reckless and often smoky circles, usually where the wheel is at full lock and the rear tires lose grip.
Like this, for example:
A Beetle is maybe a less-expected executor of this maneuver that I suspect most of you call doing donuts, or something donut-related. That’s by far the most common term for this act of hoonery, at least according to this Harvard Dialect Survey from 2003, which pegged “doing donuts” as the term for this for about 80% of America.
There were others, though! It seems the Dakotas and some of the Pacific Northwest use a different dessert-related idiom, cutting cookies, for this same act! Who knew? Sometimes it’s making cookies or doing cookies, but the point is here the round donut is replaced with another round baked treat.
Then there’s what may be my favorite one, the largely-Minnesota-based whippin’ shitties, which is delightful in its cavalierly vulgar vagueness.
And then there’s what may be the most peculiar one, I believe the least common one, and the one less regionally-focused: pull a brodie. Maybe rippin’ or spinnin’ brodies,too.
That term seems to have originated from the tale of a poor sap named Steve Brodie who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in a failed attempt to commit suicide in 1886. There’s some dispute as to whether or not a Brodie is a full donut or a J-turn or a Rockford turn – which, by the way, looks like this:
…but it does seem to be used at least sometimes to refer to donuts.
Here’s a crude map of the terms used, because this may save your life one day:
Which term do you use? Any brodie pullers out there? I’m very curious.
Oh, also, another car/donut related question is worth posing, too: which is the preferred way to make a donut car? Horizontal or vertical?
Okay. Now I really gotta get to sleep. Britain, here I come!
I grew up outside of Cleveland in the 80’s-90’s and it was always donuts for us. However, in ’89 my parents bought a cottage on a lake on the OH/PA line. I spent a lot of time out that way over the ensuing 10 years. The kids out that way called them Brodies. Never heard it before or since. But in Ashtabula County, Ohio? I guess its a thing
Given my migration through life, I could tell you a story about someone whippin’ shitties and ending up in the borrow pit, but most people wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
Some would get half the story (some the donut part, others the ditch part), but very few would understand the whole thing without additional explanation.
As a former MN resident and purveyor or Red Dirt country music, I understood!
Nobody calls it showing off for girls oh wait they’re not looking?
The preferred way to make a donut car is with an eclair. Horizontal, obviously.
I love learning fiercely protected and also insane regional terms for things. Like “jimmies” for sprinkles.
First time I heard “jimmies” I was thoroughly confused.
Jimmies are just part of the landscape for a New Englander. But the way Californians put “the” in front of route designations. It is not “the 95” It’s 95. or 128. And it sucks.
And I will never not think there’s something wrong with people who say “needs replaced” or “needs fixed”.
Native and current New Englander here. I always thought the CA habit of putting “the” in front of route designations was stupid. I was out there for two weeks a few years ago, and within DAYS I was “taking the 5 to the 10”.
When in Rome…
New Yorkers, at least Western New Yorkers (Buffalo) also prepend a ‘the’ to highways “the 90”.
Must be way-western NY, as I never heard that while living in Rochester. “The Thruway” of course had a “the”, but 90, 390, 490, 590, 104, 5 And 20, and 81 went by numbers only.
I mean, 90 is “The Pike” here, but that’s a proper(ish) name. Same as “the Thruway” or “the Sawmill/Taconic” (both thrilling in a modern diesel pickup with 1200 lb-ft of torque and 9′ of width, btw).
Way-western NY is…the lake.
As mentioned above, Buffalo, which is about as western NY as you can get without saying Chautauqua.
I have never heard these before, and they are making me itch.
sandpaper on the tympanum
sandpaper on the cerebral cortex
My mom, a New Englander by birth, got sent to the principal’s office after moving to western PA, because she laughed at her teacher for saying “aluminum never needs painted.”
Insubordination is a mark of genius
So if a part is worn out or broken… What do you say?
“needs to be replaced”
“needs repair”
“needs to be fixed”
YES! Grammar, people!
“needs replacing” or “needs to be replaced”. NEVER “needs replaced”!
Fun linguistic quirk here! “Needs fixed” is what the nerds refer to as “infinitival copula deletion,” which is just the fancy way of saying “leaving out ‘to be.'” From what I’ve read, it started in Ohio, like all cursed things do, and has slowly been migrating across the Midwest. It’s a bit like the “grocer’s apostrophe” that is pretty much a Chicago-only thing where pluralized items get an apostrophe for no apparent reason other than they ended up on big-ass grocery sale signs like 80 years ago and they just… stayed in use, because no one cared.
The one that gets my undies in a twist is the people that drop Ts from words, which seems to be a mostly Indiana thing, but I’ve heard elsewhere. It’s especially egregious in words like “curtain,” which comes out “cur’in,” or “hur’in’,” or any number of other words. “Tim Bur’in” the film director. Et cetera.
This would drive me insane. I’ll take the non-rhotic New England accent that ADDS “r” to the end of other words.
Vice versa for me.
Jimmies are long. Sprinkles are spherical.
Jawn.
“jimmies” are specifically chocolate, “sprinkles” are rainbow colored.
They’re all sorta carmauba wax and food dye, TBH
True. I should have said” brown” and not chocolate.
I seldom eat them.
The vertical donut car definitely looks like something I’ve seen before that exists.
The horizontal donut car wastes too much space, unless it has a trunk, a frunk, and two — srunks?
Clarification for the Minnesota shitties: a singular shitty/shittie is a U-turn, while shitties are rotation greater than 180 degrees.
I do have inlaws in southern Minnesota who refer to them as “doing cookies” so that term must bleed over from the Dakotas somewhat.
That reminds me that doing a U turn is referred to as ‘flipping a bitch’ on the west coast. I’d like to hear the origin of that one.
Oh, haven’t heard that one. Doin’ (or pullin’) a u-ie is what we called ’em.
Whippin shitties also extends over the medicine line into Saskatchewan. Another local term is ‘choppin nuts’
Whippin shitties is the only good Minnesota regionalism as far as I’m concerned – I always assumed it came from Canada in fact. Duck duck gray duck can fuck right off though
You sir, are flat wrong. I’ll give up whipping shitties and hot dish before I will say duck-duck-goose.
100%! (from MN)
Gray duck is far superior. You can mix it up by throwing in other colors:
“yellow duck blue duck orange duck” which can be used to throw off kids by using strategy like drawing out “grrrrrrrreen duck” before finally calling someone a “gray duck.”
Barely kicking out the tail and quickly driving around in a circle is not doing donuts Torch. And whats with the cars in the image parked on those tight donuts?? A Mini Cooper and a Beatle?!
Must be the lack of sleep – poor guy!
Uh, that’s the joke? (Both the lede image and that video of the Beetle) https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/4/7/885247.jpg
That’s not a Beetle in the lede image, it’s a Citroën 2CV, a call out to Jason’s recent acquisition of a 2CV. Part of the joke is that both the 2CV and the Mini are famously front-wheel-drive.
And what identifies that Mini as a Mini Cooper? Looks like just a regular ol’ Mini to me but I’m no Mini expert though it’s indeed a pet peeve whenever people refer to all classic Minis as “Mini Coopers.” All Mini Coopers are indeed Minis but not all Minis are Mini Coopers.
A friend who’s into 50s & 60s American cars used to keep referring to classic Minis as “Mini Coopers” despite corrections from friends until somebody pointed out that it was like calling all 60s Mustangs “Shelby Mustangs” & they finally got it.
I clearly missed the joke! Makes sense now. Maybe I’m the one who needs sleep, not Torch.
I believe if you are involuntarily bumped from a flight originating from Europe or from a flight on a European carrier ending in Europe, they owe you a decent chunk of change. So if it was Delta or United you are out of luck but if it was a Virgin Atlantic or KLM flight you bought through directly or through Delta they owe you €400 or €600.
Similar rules in the US:
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer-protection/bumping-oversales
Its got to be Figure A. Does it not bring back fond memories of Richard Scary books to everyone?
I had no idea that whippin’ shitties was so specific to MN.
We used to use it down here in ruralish Virginia
It’s probably like those Soda/Pop/Coke maps where majority term density obscures the fact that a lot of people use other terms too.
A few decades ago a buddy was in collage and was doing donuts in an empty snowy parking lot on campus. Campus security rolled up and stopped him. But they didn’t just stop him, they gave him a ticket for failure to signal a turn.
I took two lessons from this. First, campus security were petty. Second, always signal when doing donuts
As a Wisconsinite, I’ve used the term ‘whippin shitties’ for U-turns since I was a teenager in the 1990s, usually in the context that someone missed a turn so they need to ‘whip a shitty’ to go back.
Michigan lefts require the whippin of a shittie
There’s an important distinction to be made. Whipping a shitty is a u-turn/180 degrees of rotation. Whipping shitties requires 360 degrees or more of rotation.
/Minnesotan
I love doing donuts with my 13 horsepower/300 lb-ft of torque recumbent electric trike:
https://i.imgur.com/d2yizhE.jpg
It weighs about 80 lbs right now and does 0-60 mph in 7.1 seconds. It’s absolutely terrifying to ride at full throttle because it does not want to stay straight.
Without the body, my range is crap. I took it onto the highway and got up to 71 mph, and 2 miles at that speed used more than 20% of my charge. Free spinning and unloaded, the rear wheel spins to 132 mph, so with a sufficiently aerodynamic body, I think 110+ mph top end is possible.
https://i.imgur.com/5jBfRKC.jpg
I can turn the motor off and it’s still very pedalable with just my legs. Without the body, I can still do 15+ mph rolling averages without using the motor, and this is with DOT wheels and tires, gas shocks for all three wheels, and hydraulic disc brakes.
Once some parts arrive, I’m converting it to a quad with AWD, a hub motor in each front wheel and a middrive powering a differential at the rear, so I’ll be able to peel out with all four wheels at once. Looking at 30+ horsepower and 500+ lb-ft of torque in what will be a 120-ish lb vehicle. The end goal is to be able to hold my own with the local Hellcats.
The next body shell is going to look sort of like a 1937 Auto Union Type C streamliner.
Wisconsin here. In late 90s we used:
‘rippin brodies’ was only straight line burners (crappy one tire fire FWD style or weak sauce RWD g-bodies & Panther cars
‘donuts’ was exclusively for circles or attempted circles (usually in snow or grass, weak cars)
‘whippin shitties’ used for e-brake slides or rear tire tray-slides (thats actually what the parcel rack on the trunk is for, tray surfing danger – pic below)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_6000#/media/File:1987-88_Pontiac_6000_LE_06-25-2019_rear_left.jpg
Looking at the map, I’m pretty sure Oregano is a spice, not a state.
If it’s a state it’s in Italy.
And you only get one season.
It’s a state of mind.
Pretty sure Franklin isn’t a state, either, but who knows with this administration, and A1. Times are a changin’
A real East Tennessean made that map. Franklin would only be East TN. IDK what the rest of TN would be. Evidently, they tried to declare independence from what was then under the control of North Carolina.
In modern times, there are several businesses with ‘state of franklin’ in their name.
Can anyone explain Franklin more to me? I get the others but at a loss for TN.
The True Story of the Short-Lived State of Franklin
Thank you
Is it a spice or a seasoning? I feel like that was a discussion somewhere around here recently regarding salt.
I vote herb. Not to be confused with the management at that other site.
Garbage Carolina is correct, though.
I got a chuckle out of ‘Delaware, Inc.’
Disregard. My fault for commenting before coffee…
In Forgottonia, donuts for dry pavement, snownuts for, well, yeah.
I think the whippin’ shitties range is slightly larger than mapped and should include a large section of eastern Iowa. It’s possible doing donuts has taken over but whippin’ shitties was definitively the default term we used growing up there in the 90’s.
My wife is from northern Maine. She’s the only person I’ve ever met that used the term Cutting Cookies. Your map doesn’t show Maine as a Cookie Cutting area, but it is, at least out in The County.
I suspect that Cutting Cookies might be a Canadian term that crosses the border into smaller American towns. There’s a cultural mix up there on the border. My wife grew up watching CBC regularly and will talk about TV shows from her childhood that I’ve never seen.
I’ve noticed that my wife being from The County (Aroostook County is something like 75% of the land and 5% of the population of Maine) is that she gets along great with people from Wisconsin, the UP, Minnesota and the like. They have similar accents and similar ways of thinking and seeing life. Must be something in the Coffee Crisps and Red Rose Tea.
In college at UMaine I got introduced to “whippin’ shitties” by a fellow student. I wish I could remember where he was from, as that quickly became my favorite euphemism for doing donuts.
Prior to that, my entire east coast life, it was always doing donuts.
Grew up around DC, spent time in PA, lived in the South a ton and a bit in the PNW. Other than my wife’s cookies, everyone else was talking about donuts. I was today years old when I hear of Whipping Shitties, but it’s now going to replace the automotive donuts in my life.
I have heard Cutting Cookies in Maine.
As for getting along with people from Wisconsin, it’s the sarcasm. If you rib a guy in Wisconsin, they give it right back. Say the same thing to a guy from Indiana and he will offer to pray for you.
In any case, Donut is the correct term.
Speaking of alternate names for familiar driving terms, I was once piloting a car I was interested in buying, and when I asked the owner how to get back to his house, he said, “just pull a bitch right here”. For some reason, I knew exactly what to do, regardless of never having heard the expression, so made a u-turn and we headed back. Is that a common term? A regionalism? What’s the derivation?
BTW, this interchange occurred in the SF Bay Area, not exactly a hotbead of conservatism, and the owner of the car had all his teeth, so I was surprised to hear that expression at all.
*Flip a bitch*
Hmm, maybe it WAS “flip a bitch”, an expression my wife will find even MORE charming.
I grew up in San Francisco and can confirm that the phrase is “flip a bitch”.
Definitely flip a bitch, I used that one all the time in my teen years.
The first time I heard that term was in a story from my best friend. She was describing an angry school bus driver.
“So he drives down, flips a bitch-”
“Hold on, he FLIPPED a bitch? How angry was he?!”
“No, he did a U-turn”
“Oh, that’s FAR less exciting.”
Logically and rationally, Fig B, horizontal.
Emotionally, vertical.
It’s just got so much more whimsy and not enough cars have that.
I’ve lived in the PNW for all of my driving life and I don’t think I’ve every heard “cutting cookies”. “Doing Brodies” on the other had was quite commonly used when I was younger as was “Doing Donuts”.
Also I should add that the steering wheel spinner, was known as a Brodie Knob, rather than the older “Necking Knob”.
Good call on the steering wheel spinner. I put it on all my old cars as a youth. Suicide Knob
I remember that term being used too, just not as frequently.
I grew up on the southern Oregon coast and remember “cutting cookies” as the standard term long before I encountered “doing donuts.”
I hate it when things are ‘sacattered.’ Is that kinda like ‘Black Addered?’
Anywho, better cutting cookies than cutting cheese. Everywhere I’ve lived it’s only been called doin’ donuts, which tracks with your very accurate map.
(/Homer Simpson voice) Mmmmm…donuts.
I think someone let Baldrick run the spell checker again.
“[W]hich is the preferred way to make a donut car? Horizontal or vertical?”
Hmm, the sketches show the donut sitting on four wheels; what about making the donut itself the wheel? (Yeah, wheel singular.)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/Dynasphere.jpg
In the early 1930s a Dr J. A. Purves of Somerset, England built several variants of what he called the Dynasphere.
https://ietarchivesblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/naest-92-04-10-series-19-item-01-page-1.jpg?w=1414
Since it’s not altogether clear whether any of the good doctor’s Dynaspheres still exist and since you’ll be in England you could see about tracking down any surviving examples; surely Adrian will be more than happy to chauffeur you around in the Rodius in Somerset in aid of your quest.
Adrian would seemingly graciously allow you to drive the Rodius and then surreptitiously bail out the door at the first opportunity (safe or not).
One would like to think that Adrian’s response would be “Pip pip, chim chim cher-ee, strike a light, guv’nor, I’d be chuffed to give you a lift around Somerset but don’t call me Shirley.”