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Bedclothes vs. Nightclothes


aylwin13

What are bedclothes?  

19 members have voted

  1. 1. What are bedclothes?

    • PJs, nightgowns, etc.
      7
    • Sheets, blankets, pillowcases, etc.
      12


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This came up at work yesterday. I used the word "bedclothes" in the description of a purchase. Someone who looks at these things had to ask what bedclothes were. What does that word mean to you?

 

For the record, I've always used bedclothes for sheets and stuff.

 

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41 minutes ago, Cancer said:

I remember using the word (as in, being told to fetch clean ones from the closet when Mom was changing the bed) back when mid-single-digits in age.  It's not a high-use term, though.

I'm finding that out. I thought maybe it was an age thing - but that's not it either. Maybe a region thing?

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2 hours ago, aylwin13 said:

I'm finding that out. I thought maybe it was an age thing - but that's not it either. Maybe a region thing?

 

Possibly, but the memory I cited in my post is of something that occurred while we were living in West Berlin as part of the US Berlin Brigade in the early 1960s, which muddies the water a bit.

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I just call sheets and blankets, sheets and blankets.

 

I have people refer to pajamas as bedclothes. I have never really heard the term nightclothes.

 

I wear whatever tshirt and sweatpants I have currently been wearing, to bed.

 

And people who sleep naked are weird, to cover all my bases.

9 hours ago, Starlord said:

I don't think I've ever even heard of the term 'bedclothes' till now.

I have on occasion, nightclothes not so much

9 hours ago, aylwin13 said:

I'm finding that out. I thought maybe it was an age thing - but that's not it either. Maybe a region thing?

I could see that, since I live in the South, and imagine most of you consider that a whole other planet😉

5 hours ago, Old Man said:

Never heard the term before.  I don't wear clothes in bed anyway.

Again that explains a lot.

 

And luckily my mind's eye has suddenly gone blind.

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10 hours ago, aylwin13 said:

Someone who looks at these things had to ask what bedclothes were. What does that word mean to you?

 

 

 

image.jpeg.6f9401879ea2a5e9bb87ead4355e64cc.jpeg

 

image.jpeg

 

 

Both of those words mean exactly what you have them quoted as meaning.

 

Until this very discussion, I had no idea that "bedclothes" wasn't a widely-used term.  It's as common as sunshine around these parts.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Both of those words mean exactly what you have them quoted as meaning.

 

Until this very discussion, I had no idea that "bedclothes" wasn't a widely-used term.  It's as common as sunshine around these parts.

 

 

I thought most people knew the word, but as I found out... not so much. If I may ask: where would "these parts" be?

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25 minutes ago, aylwin13 said:

 If I may ask: where would "these parts" be?

 

Of course. 

 

But it's more than that, since I've heard both of these expressions all my life. 

 

I was  born and raised in Circle, Alaska.  All my neighbors said "bed clothes" and "night clothes," used as quoted above. 

 

Like everyone else, I learned the phrases from my parents, who were both transplants from Somerset County, Maine. 

 

I got a job as a young man that took me out of Alaska, and I worked my my down to the southern US.  For what it's worth, I've never lived anywhere that people didnt know what those terms referenced. 

 

I ended up on coastal Georgia, where I lived for twenty years.  The coast got too damned crowded, so I moved inland.  Problematical, I have to live near water: I was born near it, and grew up using the Yukon as a fridge.  On the coast, I had the ocean.  In Savanah, we lived three hundred yards from the river. 

 

I moved to Toombs County Georgia, where I have lived eve since.  It's starting to get crowded here, too, but I hate to leave.  I am surrounded by five rivers now! 

 

 

But still, everyone here knows what bedclothes and night clothes are. 

 

For what it's worth, the only different e I have seen is how you talk to kids: back home, you said "jammies."   Down here, you say "Peejays." 

 

I don't know if that helps your survey or skews it, but there it is. 

 

Given that I've never, anywhere in the country, met anyone who didn't know and use these terms, I suspect it may be a generational thing (I'm sixty). 

 

 

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