What families call LEGO

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By Phillip Torrone
Posted 2009/11/06 @ 1:53 pm
Category Fun & Games

Giles Turnbull @ The Morning News has a fun article about the family Nomenclature for LEGO… He writes -

Itâ€™s a scene that is replayed by kids and parents everywhere. And itâ€™s the starting point for a unique quirk of language: Lego nomenclature.

Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. â€œDad, please could you pass me that Brick 2×2?â€ No. In our house, itâ€™ll always be: â€œDad, please could you pass me that four-er?â€

And Iâ€™ll pass it, because I know exactly which piece he means. Lego nomenclature is essential for family Lego building.

BY Phillip Torrone

Editor at large - Make magazine. Creative director - Adafruit Industries, contributing editor - Popular Science. Previously: Founded - Hack-a-Day, how-to editor - Engadget, Director of product development - Fallon Worldwide, Technology Director - Braincraft.

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4 Responses to What families call LEGO

Erk Oak on November 9th, 2009 at 8:38 pm said:

I always called those standard 2X4′s a “four piece” and people would look at me funny then try to hand me a square (which I called a “two piece” by the way)

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- Elm on November 12th, 2009 at 9:21 am said:
  
  My family always called the 2x4s four pieces too! Or “four piece bricks”. The 1×4 were “four piece thins”. Then there were the four piece flats, but you needed those less often. And the flats that were smooth on the bottom were platforms. We didn’t have special names for all the weird pieces, just the common ones. We would just describe them if necessary.
  
  Very interesting article though!
  
  Reply ↓
Aeiluindae on November 9th, 2009 at 9:27 pm said:

Funny thing is, a lot of the time, my names for lego pieces were very similar to the official names, which made for much less ambiguity. I also rarely called out a piece by name, instead actually finding one and then asking for another, because you generally needed a pair.

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Justin on November 9th, 2009 at 9:46 pm said:

I used to call them all sorts of weird stuff…can’t remember any now. Now I do a lot of Ldraw, so I pretty much use the official names, or at least the Ldraw part name.

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