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QUICK POLL: Terminology smackdown - Pickguard or Scratchplate?

wateroftyne

By wateroftyne,
in Bass Guitars

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Quick poll - Pickguard or Scratchplate?  

102 members have voted

  1. 1. What's it to you?

    • Scratchplate
      62
    • Pickguard
      40

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Lozz196 Grand Master

Lozz196

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Cat Burrito said:

It was scratchplate but more recently the Americanisation of our language means pickguard is now the default. I went through a phase about 15yrs ago of buying dozens and recall the change happening around that era.

Agree, I pretty much always called them scratchplates but have noticed the move to pickguard.

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KK Jale Proficient

KK Jale

Posted
Posted

I do believe they are different things, and when pushed to it, especially with beer inside me, I will argue that a pickguard is raised from the body of the instrument while a scratchplate is screwed down flat.

A jazz guitar has a pickguard. A Jazz Bass has a scratchplate. 

 

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drTStingray Mentor

drTStingray

Posted
Posted

I'm British and to me it's scratchplate (even though all my basses were built in the US so all the terminology is non UK - eg tuning peg, not machine head etc etc. I'm not sure if they call a body a cadavre or not 😧 haven't tried to order a replacement yet 😂😂).

Anyhoo I'm sort of cool with either as electric basses and guitars generally originated in the US.

If my plumber starts referring to those things in the bathroom and kitchen as fawcetts I will have to do the old reminding routine (the English invented er English) 😀 This takes me back to an interesting story I was once told by a security adviser to HM Government I know that on presenting to US officials some of the UKs research into certain types of security measure the US guys objected to the names (they were worried about double entendres of the type which would class as a very indirect item in a Carry On Film - the sort you might suddenly get when you hear it for the twentieth time over a period of decades) - so sought to change the names - the UK contingent pointed out who had actually invented the language hahaha 😂👍 and it wasn't Bill Gates etc etc!! 

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drTStingray Mentor

drTStingray

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

My wife also calls the glove compartment of a car The drop down.

Also makes me feel sick. 

 

Is she perhaps referring to it as an analogue version of the computer software item we have all come to love (and curse when the item you want isn't there and you can't write the correct one in because the field doesn't let you)? 

Anyone come across the term 'granularity' - seemingly originated in Silicon Valley but now misused by all and sundry in my industry - so when you hear 'those drawings need more granularity' it doesn't mean darker coffee cup stains - it means detail!! Looking at something in more detail is now obtaining more granularity - even Matt Hancock on a Covid 19 tele briefing referred to more granular data 😁 But why not say detail?? Definitely puke worthy. I blame Susie Dent and the panel for letting really silly words into the Oxford English Dictionary. 

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Maude Grand Master

Maude

Posted
Posted (edited)

Surely it's as simple as whether you call the strummy thing a plectrum or a pick. I've always called it a plectrum and the big platey cover thing a scratchplate, because calling those items a pick and a pickguard is wrong if you're British. If you're from America call them a pick and pickguard. Same as we don't have trash cans to put garbage in and trunks, hoods and fenders on cars, the Americans don't have rubbish bins, boots, bonnets and wings. It's funny really as 'we all wanna be Americans' but as much as Americans love the British, as far as I'm aware they don't feel the need to try and copy our language and slang. 

I'm well aware I'm at risk of entering full rant mode but my son calls rubbish trash and my wife goes into a shop and says, "Can I get.......?" But when I say to her, "No he/she will get it for you", everyone looks at me like I'm the idiot!

"LIKE TOTES AMAZEBALLS!!"

Exiting rant mode and time for a cup of tea I reckon, yes milk, no, no bloody ice!

😉

Edited by Maude
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