"Cake" versus "Puck"

**Toddy** · 02-20-2012, 03:45 PM

Something I find peculiar on this site - I had always heard as the soap refills referred to as "cakes" but here everyone seems to call them "pucks" (which I always understood to be a kind of fairy in folklore). Is it a US thing?

**FonGu** · 02-20-2012, 03:54 PM

I've always heard of them called pucks. Maybe because hockey here in N. America. The soap 'cake' is roughly the same size and shape as a hockey puck (except those that have the rounded/domed side to fit into brand specific wooden bowls).

**Crixus** · 02-20-2012, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by Toddy

Something I find peculiar on this site - I had always heard as the soap refills referred to as "cakes" but here everyone seems to call them "pucks" (which I always understood to be a kind of fairy in folklore). Is it a US thing?

I suppose it is a North American thing. The "pucks" of soap remind us of a hockey puck because of the overall shape.

Cake is what we have at weddings and birthday parties. Maybe in the UK they are named after sweets served at "tea".

**bkflyfisher** · 02-20-2012, 04:12 PM

I was just musing about this earlier; that shave soap was referred to as a puck-sounds more macho or something.

**nav** · 02-20-2012, 04:17 PM

Even though ice hockey is not big in Australia, I have always used the work "puck" as opposed to cake. A cake of soap for some reason doesn't work for me, I feel puck is much more representative of a shaving soap. Many people also use "bar" but that just brings up images of bath soap for me.

**Crixus** · 02-20-2012, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by bkflyfisher

I was just musing about this earlier; that shave soap was referred to as a puck-sounds more macho or something.

Could be. I see you're from Brooklyn. What's to say a bunch of Flatbush boys back in the 1950s didn't swipe one of their old man's Williams to play street hockey after their real puck went down the storm grate.

**BroJohn** · 02-20-2012, 04:23 PM

In this context you can consider 'cake' == 'puck'. Call it as you will, we'll understand.

HTH.

-- John Gehman

**sulkhogan** · 02-20-2012, 05:34 PM

"Cake" reminds me of urinal cakes, so unless we're talking about Arko...

**RatMan** · 02-20-2012, 06:11 PM

I always thought the cake refereed to the rough cut squares??

**bkflyfisher** · 02-20-2012, 08:12 PM

It's quite possible-not sure if street hockey was played around here in the fifties? I certainly wasn't.

Originally Posted by Crixus

Could be. I see you're from Brooklyn. What's to say a bunch of Flatbush boys back in the 1950s didn't swipe one of their old man's Williams to play street hockey after their real puck went down the storm grate.

**lakechuck** · 02-20-2012, 08:51 PM

Originally Posted by sulkhogan

"Cake" reminds me of urinal cakes, so unless we're talking about Arko...

You know, I'm glad you said it. That's what I always think, too.

**ThePatrician** · 02-20-2012, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by RatMan

I always thought the cake refereed to the rough cut squares??

Oh good, I'm not the only one! That was my thinking too.

**will78** · 02-21-2012, 02:07 AM

I've never heard the word "Puck" being used in the UK with reference to anything. (Except when I was studying A Midsummer Night's Dream in school as a teenager) :pI have heard people here refer to a unit of soap as a "cake", but before I started frequenting the internet shaving forums I always referred to such things as a "block" or if it was rectangular a "bar".Maybe we ought to split the difference and call it a "Cuck" or a "Pake"?

**Bearsfan** · 02-21-2012, 02:41 AM

Originally Posted by sulkhogan

"Cake" reminds me of urinal cakes, so unless we're talking about Arko...

That's funny, I refer to them as urinal pucks as well. It's puck for me all the way around.

I did play hockey for 25 years though....

**will78** · 02-21-2012, 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by Crixus

I suppose it is a North American thing. The "pucks" of soap remind us of a hockey puck because of the overall shape.

Etymology.com's description supports this too:-

puck

"hockey disk," 1891, possibly from puck (v.) "to hit, strike" (1861), which perhaps is related to poke via notion of "push." Another suggestion traces the noun to Ir. poc "bag."Puckster headlinese for "ice hockey player" is attested from 1939.

**global_dev** · 02-21-2012, 05:30 AM

i think of soap cake as any piece of soap. i refer to a puck of soap cake as a small bar of soap round or rectangle shape. rectangle you say, that's sacrilege. but i do it anyway...

**Go West Young Man** · 02-21-2012, 09:25 AM

They're both descriptive terms, just describing different aspects of the soap. A cake is "

a shaped or compressed mass" wh

ile puck is a "disc" (courtesy dictionary.com)
I think puck is the default American term.

**inspiringK** · 02-21-2012, 09:28 AM

Originally Posted by RatMan

I always thought the cake refereed to the rough cut squares??

Originally Posted by lakechuck

You know, I'm glad you said it. That's what I always think, too.

A third here for this distinction.

**Bobtrumpet** · 02-21-2012, 10:19 AM

Someone in another thread referred to a shaving soap "biscuit." A first on B&B, in my reading at least.

**Toddy** · 02-21-2012, 10:40 AM

Well I learnt something today. Always wondered why people were calling the soaps pucks on here. Ice hockey is virtually unknown in the UK (there are a small handful of teams but there's not many ice rinks or cold enough weather, and you never hear about it). Most people here know absolutely nothing about it other than it is played wearing ice skates, though you probably can get it on some of the subscriber sports channels in the early hours. Hockey here is grass hockey, played with a ball on a grass pitch.

I have also heard shaving soaps referred to as "rounds" of soap. Bar soap usually means rectangles, "brick" soap is like laundry soap (eg Sunlight soap) or carbolic soap. A "cake" would refer to a shaving refil (though usually it would just be called a refill).

A "cake" you eat can be any size, but a typical layer cake for example would be a similar shape, though somewhat larger. We have "fairy cakes" which are similar to what the US call cup cakes, but smaller.