Sacks
By DAN LANGFORD
I bought three or four small things in a convenience store the other day, and the preoccupied clerk offered me nothing in which to carry them out. “May I have a sack, please?” I asked politely.
“A WHAT??!!” came her sarcastic and not-at-all friendly reply.
” A sack,” I repeated, feeling a bit awkward and conspicuous, but unsure as to why.
The clerk, who as far as I could tell was not foreign, had never heard a “bag” referred to as a “sack,” which made me wonder if the latter is a Southern thing. “I thought a sack was something you got into each night — like hitting the sack,” she told me.
“I’ve heard that and said it,” I told her, “but mostly a ’sack’ is what we bring groceries home from the store in. She seemed unconvinced, which I might understand if I had asked for a “poke,” usage I’ll admit is old-fashioned and quaint — but not to know what a “sack” is? I’m continually amazed.