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I'm editing a future story for Katherine Day, and something turned up -- very possibly a regional issue -- that I figured people here might be able to answer.
One of the supporting characters is a gym teacher. Katherine's protagonist uses the term "Phy Ed" teacher to describe him. I've only heard "Phys Ed" and "P.E". Dictionary.com considers the first and third of these to be abbreviations and calls the second "informal" speech.
I live just outside of San Francisco (where I was born and grew up) and Katherine AFAIK is in Wisconsin. This story takes place on the Atlantic coast, with New York the nearest major city. The time period is the present. Can anyone tell me which term, if any, would be used there?
Eric
In New York state,
when I was growing up, 50 years ago, it was Phys Ed.
Liz
I have never heard anyone,
I have never heard anyone, from any part of the country, refer to it as 'phy ed'. Only PE and Phys Ed. Mostly "P.E." in the south.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Phy Ed?
North Dakota, definitely (one year's experience). Maybe Minnesota.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
More often than not they are simply called Gym teachers.....
Although Phys Ed is the class, or more commonly it is also referred to as Gym class.
Due to the weather, Phys Ed is taught indoors for a good percentage of the year, in the gym as a matter of fact. Hence the use of Gym class and Gym teacher.
When I was younger and lived in Florida, we called it P.E., but when I moved to Upstate NY everyone simply referred to it as Gym Class.
I hope that helps.
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Phy Ed
It was Phy Ed in the Midwest. No fizzzzz.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
50's - 60's
most of us kids, when asked, just went to "gym". Most of the teachers would tell us that better get to gym. If we were speaking individually with a teacher about what our next class they might refer to it as PE Our schedule cards referred to the class as PE. If a teacher was asked what class they taught, the answer was most likely Phys Ed. Teachers would refer to another teacher when speaking with adults or another teacher as the Phys Ed teacher.
That's 35 miles west of Albany NY
Gym Class is what I recall.
Gym Class is what I recall. Phys Ed and P.E also sound familiar. That's from high school in Westchester County (northern border of NYC) in the 1960's.
P.E.
I grew up on the East Coast, PA. We used P.E. for the class and referred to the teacher as a gym teacher.
P.E.
Growing up, in our town we called it pretty much everything. Officially it was abbreviated as P.E., sometimes we called it that, other times was called it Phys Ed or Gym..of course we had also called it torture time or "the running of the Moose" (as opposed to bulls). The teachers we called "Coach" but mostly because they were the coaches for the football team. We had one coach we called "The Moose" and he of course thought we were being respectful of him, he loved the nickname and kept it for years. In reality we called him that because his pants didn't fit him right and he was always sporting a moose knuckle, it was our way of making fun of him. Durring pep rallies when ever the coach walked up to make his speech about how we were gonna kick butt or whatever the whole school would shout "MOOOOOOOSE! as he walked up to the mike. It always made him smile and blush with pride.... we laughed. To make it worse, it stuck with the adults too, though i don't think they understood the real reason behind it. The announcers at the football games started calling that too. It even went into the yearbook. Coach Jason "The Moose" Johnson (no not his real name, just an example)
Yeah, it was mean... but we were kids.
I have lived on the east coast all of my life...
I have never heard Phy Ed being used. When I saw it here I was sure it was a typo. It is interesting to learn that some folks use it. I think though for your story using the much more common Phys Ed, PE or Gym will work better for more of your readers. What I am seeing from the comments is that Phy Ed must be a regional thing. It still looks like a typo to me. ( and to the spell checker here on BC)