We went out one evening this week to celebrate a friend’s birthday. During the conversation, we found out that she was originally from Tennessee. She remarked that often people didn’t understand her because she talked “southern.” As the conversation progressed, she didn’t come up with any words or phrases that were unfamiliar to to me. However, I told her I was from Oklahoma and there were a number of “Oklahoma phrases” that she had never heard.
One term that particularly fascinated her was the use of the word “turtle” to refer to the trunk of a car. When I was growing up, we always referred to the trunk of a car as the “turtle.” As far as I can tell, it seems to be a Texas/Oklahoma thing… most (older) people from that region are familiar with the term and some still use it.
Parts of cars, like everything else, I suppose, are called by different names in different parts of the country/world. We usually refer to the part of the car that covers the engine the hood, but the British use the term bonnet. Of course there are many others — fenders/mudguards, turn signals/indicators, license plate/registration plate, windshield/windscreen….
Why did the term “trunk” catch on? People that owned the earlier cars, used to strap travel chests, or trunks, to the back of their cars. Once the car makers started building cars with built-in rear compartments, there wasn’t any reason to travel with the trunks — the name seems to have stuck….
But back to the turtle — there are a few theories as why that word was chosen. If you’re as old as I am, you remember cars having “rumble seats.” It was a kind of concealed folding seat at the rear of the car. Rumble seats, when not being used for a seat, were often used for storage, so it was a bit like todays trunk. It was often called a turtle because it folded into the car like a turtle’s body parts.
Another possible explanation is that many of the older cars were designed with a sloping back and trunk section that resembled a “turtle.” The same similar styles today are referred to as “fastbacks.” Probably some marketing guy decided that fastback was much cooler than turtle.
I guess maybe that’s true fastback certainly conjures up a different image than turtle, but turtles are kind of cool too… we’ve all heard that a turtle only makes progress when he sticks his neck out — good advice when encouraging someone to take a chance. But I think I like turtles because they’re comfortable in their own shell….
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