This is a bubbler (a bubbler-brand bubbler, too!):
iirc from the last time this came up, they were super popular in the "bubbler"-using regions so the name stuck around to describe all drinking fountains, not just bubblers.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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Thank you! Bubblers were created and patented in Wisconsin, too, so I'm glad we are keeping the name alive.
It's disappointing when these are cut off at the Canadian border. Canada is influenced by both the UK and the US, and has been drifting towards the US over recent decades. Plus, Canada has some really weird dialect areas like Newfoundland.
It would be interesting to see which terms drift north of the border, and which ones stop at the border. How hard is the border when it comes to dialects? Does the fact that people live most of their lives on one side of the border mean that the language doesn't tend to drift across it? Or do people hear their neighbours talk and begin to adopt some terms? My guess would be that these days it's more influenced by what's on TV or on the Internet.
Quebec:
Quebec has a surprising number of English speakers, and their dialect is interesting.
Indeed, myself included!
People can never tell where my accent is from.
Wait til you hear that one random tiny state calls milkshakes "cabinets"
One common, but unsubstantiated, explanation is that the soda jerk or pharmacist kept the coffee syrup in one of the polished wooden cabinets behind the counter.
The good old days when you had service minded jerks rather than the unpleasant ones we have today 😄
I used to work as a Coffee Karen at a Starbucks.
Did you keep demanding to speak to your own manager?
My grandmother was a soda jerk for a time. Also did the switchboard for telephones too!
Living in northern Minnesota, drinking fountain and water fountain get used interchangeably. And I've only known one person that used bubbler regularly. But they weren't in their right mind most of the time.
And ain't nothing IDs a Minnesotan faster than hot dish vs casserole or even worse, Duck Duck Grey Duck vs Duck Duck Grey Goose. We WILL go to war over that stuff.
Duck Grey Duck vs Duck Duck Grey Goose
So it HAS to be grey, but it's debatable whether or not it's vodka? Americans are weird sometimes 🤔
Where I'm from in the US it was always duck duck goose, a kid moved to our school and said grey duck once. Poor kid didn't hear the end of it until middle school
Funny enough, there's a brand of vodka made in Minnesota called Grey Duck.
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Yeah, I grew up in Wisconsin closer to the Minnesota border, so I used both as well. When I moved to Eastern Wisconsin, I solidified on "drinking fountain" because people here call it a "bubbler" and tease you more about "water fountain."
Oh yeah, and I remember getting blank stares in college when mentioning that we had a lot of hot dish growing up. I didn't realize how regional that phrase was.
Hotdish is a term that will instantly mark you as a Minnesotan. And tater tot hotdish is our state food and religion. Everyone makes and eats it. Sadly, lutefisk and potato klub are fading away as more of us old timers die off. But lefse is still hanging on though.
Hot dish and bars motherfucker.
Wife still uses bubbler to this day. It was (is?) a brand name.
Abreuvoir
No thanks, I already ate
This reminds me of the similar map of names for soft drinks. You have your soda vs coke, but I live in one of the "pop" regions which is admittedly a larger area than these little "bubbler" enclaves.
I mostly switched over to "soda" once I went to college though. A nationwide and international assortment of group members will encourage that.
The worst are the places that call every soda "Coke."
The concept makes me irrationally angry.
That's likely because the Internet has lied to you and 'coke' isn't used in the same manner as soda / pop. Rather it's used as an example. Like "hey, do you want a coke or something" Which means they have coke and likely other soft drinks like Sprite, Mountain dew, etc but most definitely NOT Pepsi. No one is going to look at a Dr Pepper or Sprite and call it a Coke in the South East. Source, grew up in Coke mecca / Atlanta
So waiters don't ask "what kind of coke do you want?"
People at restaurants don't ask waiters, "what kinds of coke do you have?"
"I'll have a coke"
"What kind?"
"Dr Pepper"
Isn't a real exchange that happens?
Can we get a second opinion on this?
texan here: yeah it’s more “a coke or something”, never “what kind of coke do you want”. like we forgot the generic word soda/cola collectively.
Fireflies, lightning bugs, and glitter bats
Somewhere an emo band has just found their new album title.
Glitter bats? ...That's him officer!! Get em!!!
MFW Americans call litty bitty bright booty scamps "lightening bugs"
glitter bats
That's fucking delightful! 😄
I grew up near the triple point so I change phases between drinking fountain and water fountain while encountering the occasional bubbler
Water fountain is the ornamental thing you see in a park with multiple tiers full of gross water and coins.
What do they call a water fountain if it’s not the drinking kind?
And having lived in the “bubbler” zone, I’ve never once heard it called that. Must be disappearing.
A fountain. Drop the word water, as you aren't drinking from that.
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"is there a water fountain here?"
"Yeah, at the entrance to the neighborhood in the retaining pond"
People in New Hampshire watching the Bluey episode "Bin Night"
I've not seen that episode, but I'm guessing they use the word bubbler in it? That's definitely what we call them in Australia. Or at least here in Brisbane where I'm from, and Bluey is set.
Definitely regional in Australia. Drinking fountain gang here.
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