Pocketbook vs. Purse

 

The scene: A restaurant terrace in a Geneva country restaurant on a day with perfect temperature and blue skies. 

The people: I'm with a friend of 32 years. With our different schedules and locations, eating together is a real treat. My friend and I sat under an umbrella. The only other people on the terrace were four women a girl about four who rode her scooter around the terrace as the women talked.

My friend and I ate two different kinds Flammehkueche as we caught up on everything that we missed in our emails and on Facebook.

Situation: I hold up my brown bag holding my wallet, phone, breath mints, tissues, and a few dog biscuits. My husband, who grew up in Upstate New York, calls this a purse. I grew up outside Boston and call it a pocket book.

As writers my husband and I talk a lot about words. "We've had many discussions, pocketbook vs. purse," I tell her. If I had friends from my youth, they too would call it a pocket book. I've asked.

"It's a purse," my friend said. She grew up in California.

She has been in Switzerland around 50 years. I've been here more than 30. We deal in multi languages at different levels almost daily.

Based on having "adventures" and discussions too many to count over the years, the next step was natural. She reached for her phone and checked the etymology for pocket book and purse. Here's what we found. 

14th-15th century A small bag worn that might be sewn onto clothes known as a pokete, from a Old North French poque "bag" or Germanic puk. The term purse snatcher appears eferring to a pick pocket thus the word purse must have been used. The same goes for purse strings. Pursen meant put money in a bag that might be secured by pulled strings. 

1610 Oops! The meaning has changed with time and a pocket book is described as often made of leather and as a small book to carry papers and bills in one's pocket.

1722 Pocket is used to describe flexible book like a leather folder for papers, bills.  The phrase "out of pocket" appears at this time referring to money.

1816 Called a woman's purse for the first time. My husband will love this.

According to Webster Merriman there are two meanings to pocket book:  1. A pocket book is a small paperback book. Doesn't help us at all.  2. A flat typically leather folding case for money or personal papers that can be carried in a pocket or handbag. Because we'd finished our meal, we did not discuss words like handbag, clutch purse or just plain bag..

Living in different countries with different languages over my adult years, I'm aware of regional differences in words. They exist in all languages. For example: A croissant in Paris is a chocolatine in Toulouse. Both are made the same way and taste great early in the morning with a cup of tea. A renversé in Geneva just four bus stops away across the French border in Ferney-Voltaire becomes a café au lait.

Sometimes it amazes me that people can communicate at all as words change meaning over time. Also, we have personal reactions to words. In a communication course I once taught, I used mother as an example. 

There is the definition, a woman who gives birth to a child. However, one's reaction to the word may conjure up different images. A person whose mother baked cookies, played games, read stories at bedtimes and gave lots of love might feel differently from a person whose mother beat them regularly.

In the pocketbook/purse debate with my husband, I sometimes call my bag a purse and every now and then he'll ask about my pocketbook. We both may call it a bag. Maybe that's one reason our marriage is a happy one, but that is a subject for another blog.

Note 1: visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com

Note 2: I know there are strange lines in this blog which I don't see until the blog is printed. I have no idea where they came from and attempts to get rid of them have failed.