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Cake or puck?

It is obvious everyone uses the word soap "puck" because many shaving soaps come shaped like a hockey puck.


Shaving Made Easy, a vintage book about shaving, used the word "cake" of shaving soap. This seemed curious to me because, again, everyone uses the word "puck" today on the forums. Now, none of the meanings of the word "puck" is consistent with how we use the word http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puck

Searching for the definition of "cake" yields the following results: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cake

5.
a shaped or compressed mass:
a cake of soap; a cake of ice.

Thus, I will switch over to the correct terminology. You are all welcome to keep using the colloquial "puck" but I will not.
 
It is obvious everyone uses the word soap "puck" because many shaving soaps come shaped like a hockey puck.


Shaving Made Easy, a vintage book about shaving, used the word "cake" of shaving soap. This seemed curious to me because, again, everyone uses the word "puck" today on the forums. Now, none of the meanings of the word "puck" is consistent with how we use the word http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puck

Searching for the definition of "cake" yields the following results: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cake



Thus, I will switch over to the correct terminology. You are all welcome to keep using the colloquial "puck" but I will not.




I do appreciate the option to continue using the incorrect terminology - but also wonder, if I (and others), need to make a similar public announcement , regarding our preferred nomenclature?

-s




:001_smile
 
I always associated a cake of soap with bath soap. And just thought that a puck meant shaving soap. But, good question because some shaving soaps come as a bar (like a cake of bath soap).
 
I do appreciate the option to continue using the incorrect terminology - but also wonder, if I (and others), need to make a similar public announcement , regarding our preferred nomenclature?

-s




:001_smile

I only made the announcement because people are using the incorrect terminology without knowing, as I did. It is a free country of course, one can call a basketball a "moon" or "pearl" if they so wish but it isn't correct.
 
When I was a kid 72+- years ago we used to play hockey on natural outdoor ice rinks. They were cleaned once daily by a horse drawn ice scraper.
There was no organized hockey back then and we could not afford to buy conventional hard rubber pucks.
The horse would always oblige us by leaving a generous deposit of pucks. We had to wait until the next day when they were frozen solid.
The horse pucks served admirably unless they were hit too hard when they instantly turned to powder. Hence no slap shots.

fram773, I will switch too. Pucks are not what I want rubbed on my face.

Mickey
 
A generic cake of soap is of any shape, often oval or oblong. A puck of shaving soap is always round, like a (non-horse) hockey puck. Not too complicated, and a nice accurate distinction is preserved.
 
your book is vintage you say. how vintage? how much of the syntax and language from the book is still in use today?

language is alive and changing. it's inevitable.

I'm not questioning your decision, just some perspective.
 
"Puck" is now commonly used and is generally understood to mean a disk-shaped block of soap. Just as bath soap is also called a "bar" of soap. The terms used to describe things can and do change over time and can vary from place to place. That doesn't make one term wrong or right.

Cake=puck=bar when it comes to soap, in my opinion.
 
"Puck" is now commonly used and is generally understood to mean a disk-shaped block of soap. Just as bath soap is also called a "bar" of soap.

"Yolo" and "turn up" are commonly used. They are still slang words of course (I apologize for having to use those words). The thing is that people use "puck" to refer to any kind of soap, even the ones that don't come in a hockey puck shape. "puck" by the way, as it is used, is not in the dictionary. While "bar" is:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bar?s=t 2. an oblong piece of any solid material: a bar of soap; a candy bar.


That "cake" means any kind of shape shaving soap (or any shape of regular soap) is a much more accurate term

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your book is vintage you say. how vintage? how much of the syntax and language from the book is still in use today?

language is alive and changing. it's inevitable.

I'm not questioning your decision, just some perspective.

My only source wasn't the book but a dictionary as well. Look in a modern dictionary. The old definition still stands there.


The book is from 1905 not middle English. Not even early modern (Shakespearean) English. And here is an ad from 40-50 years before that book which also says the same:

$rqAGeUP.jpg



The book is focused on straight razors; if you care to read it is located here: https://archive.org/details/shavingmadeeasyw0020th It is in the public domain and free to download.
 
Goodfellow,
This is much ado about nothing.
No, I think it's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The word cake simply refers to the shape of the soap, it does not mean a delicious piece of soap. It's just a (more or less) rectangular piece of soap.

Whatever, I will continue to call triple-milled shaving soap in disc form a puck.
 
As language constantly evolves, I find it unreasonable to ignore a term that has been widely accepted, and insist on an old term that has fallen out of use and that one may have stumbled across in an old book.


But I need to go to my automobile now and drive to the nearest filling station to put gasoline into the fuel reservoir, to use the correct terminology that I may have found in a 1912 Ford Model T Operator's Handbook. 😊



B.
 
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As language constantly evolves, I find it unreasonable to ignore a term that has been widely accepted, and insist on an old term that has fallen out of use and that one may have stumbled across in an old book.


But I need to go to my automobile now and drive to the nearest filling station to put gasoline into the fuel reservoir, to use the correct terminology that I may have found in a 1912 Ford Model T Operator's Handbook. 😊



B.


If you excuse me I'm going to turn up at my sis' party cuz yolo! Screw what the dictionary says, yolo!
 
Goodfellow,
This is much ado about nothing.
No, I think it's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The word cake simply refers to the shape of the soap, it does not mean a delicious piece of soap. It's just a (more or less) rectangular piece of soap.

Whatever, I will continue to call triple-milled shaving soap in disc form a puck.


$79rooney-puck-midsummer-nights-dream.jpg
 
It is obvious everyone uses the word soap "puck" because many shaving soaps come shaped like a hockey puck.


Shaving Made Easy, a vintage book about shaving, used the word "cake" of shaving soap. This seemed curious to me because, again, everyone uses the word "puck" today on the forums. Now, none of the meanings of the word "puck" is consistent with how we use the word http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puck

Searching for the definition of "cake" yields the following results: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cake



Thus, I will switch over to the correct terminology. You are all welcome to keep using the colloquial "puck" but I will not.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nitpick?s=t
 
I guess I'm kinda surprised that a "cake" of soap is just now part of the conversation...I thought everyone knew that soap has been(in the past) referred to as a "cake."

The trend seems to be to call it by it's shape...maybe adding it's specified use as well for specialty soaps...

You could have a bar of shave soap...or a puck of shave soap...
a puck of face soap...or a bar of face soap...
but if it's just a "bar" of soap...it's probably regular ol' bath soap...

This certainly has been an entertaining conversation :lol:

Is it soda, pop, or a coke???? Does any of this depend on your geography? Are there parts of the country still referring to soap as a "cake?" I doubt it...
 
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