We say eavestrough, you say gutter

One thing that I found interesting on this forum, is that most Americans call the call the channel around the roof that collects rainwater a gutter.

Whereas most Canadian call them eaves troughs. I was unfamiliar with the term Gutter cleaning until I read more about it on this forum. Whenever we spoke about cleaning the channel around the roof, myself, and customers always called it eaves, or eaves troughs. Just today, someone asked me if we clean eaves troughs.

I did a quick search of Toronto area websites, and most speak of eaves rough cleaning. Even one that mentioned gutter cleaning, mentioned it at eaves trough cleaning on several other parts of his site. On Kevin’s site, he speaks of eaves trough cleaning.

That’s quite a remarkable difference in words. Does anyone else on an international level call what Americans call a gutter, eaves troughs? Do any Americans call it eaves troughs?

I know this is an odd topic, but it just occured to me.

I guess this is like the different words used like route and round and so forth.

Mike

Canadian English, per Wikipedia: Canadian English - Wikipedia

Mikep,

I live in n.w. ct and have been cleaning “gutters” for 10 years now and had 2 customers in that time refer to them as troughs and I wondered where they were from. Must be Canadian a.

Sorry I didn’t answer your question, just got me thinking.

Good find Larry.

It says there that eavestrough is a distinctively Canadian word. I wonder how we ended up using that word whereas it appears the rest of the world does not, including even Britain.

I had to do the opposite of what you did, I had to research eavestrough to see what you guys were talking about.
I do speak spanish and came from a South American country and we have VERY few of those back there, and we call them what can be traslated as " roof drainage" or something similar.

I grew up in southwestern Michigan, and we always called them “eavestroughs” (one word). I never heard them referred to as gutters until I moved to Indiana. Here everyone says “gutters”, and I’m only 40 miles from my childhood home. There is, however, one advertisment in the Yellow Pages for “Eavestroughs” (under the “Gutters” rubric, naturally).

I grew up in southwestern Michigan, and we always called them “eavestroughs” (one word). I never heard them referred to as gutters until I moved to Indiana. Here everyone says “gutters”, and I’m only 40 miles from my childhood home. There is, however, one advertisment in the Yellow Pages for “Eavestroughs” (under the “Gutters” rubric, naturally).