Brush, bush or bushes?

[CobyRupert]

Do you call it brush, bush, bushes? Is it a regional thing? A singular vs plural thing? Maybe you're an Australian who lives in the bush? Maybe you're name is Connie (or Phil) and you have brush burn :licking:, maybe you're the 41 or 43 President, ok somebody stop me...

Personally: I call 1 unit a bush, 2 units (gets tricky): bushes or brush. A few plants might be bushes, a hedgerow can be bushes or brush. Once a bush, bushes or brush is cut its all brush. Agree?

 

[dave1949]

A bush is a plant you want to have. Two or more are bushes. A yard with many desirable bushes is bushy.

Brush is just nondescript woody plants that are usually in the way. Brushy is a condition where a lot of brush is present.

Woods Co. has made this a linguistic mess with their "Bush Hogs" and "Brush Bull" brand names.

 

[kg7il]

How about Shrub, Shrubbery and Shrubby?

I think it's regional and I think it's usage is unwittingly used interchangeable.
Unless I was executing a contract * I wouldn't get upset my them used interchangeably.

*If a contract said "Rentor must not remove bushes, but may remove brush" I would want a definition included in the contract.

If 41 and 43 were shrubs, then then 44 is a weed.

 

[Jim Shooz]

Different places different interpretations. Down here anything that isn't a tree is a bush. Singular, multiple or covering the entire hillside. Even though the bush on the hillside might be made up of trees, bushes, and scrub.

A brush is that small handled hairy thing you use to brush the ashes from the fireplace. (or you put paint on to spread it around)

 

[2LaneCruzer]

A bush is a plant you want to have. Two or more are bushes. A yard with many desirable bushes is bushy.

Brush is just nondescript woody plants that are usually in the way. Brushy is a condition where a lot of brush is present.

Woods Co. has made this a linguistic mess with their "Bush Hogs" and "Brush Bull" brand names.

I prefer shinnery myself.

 

[dave1949]

I prefer shinnery myself.

LOL. Learn a new word every day. Nobody around here or Ohio uses shinnery to my knowledge. Maybe the Mainers with French roots do, but I've never run across it.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

LOL. Learn a new word every day. Nobody around here or Ohio uses shinnery to my knowledge. Maybe the Mainers with French roots do, but I've never run across it.

Picked that up from a bunch of Texicans that I used to hunt pheaseants with.

 

[jinman]

A brush is that small handled hairy thing you use to brush the ashes from the fireplace. (or you put paint on to spread it around)

Now I know what all those wooden handled hairy things are floating down Brushy Creek. Has anyone mentioned thicket yet? Isn't a thicket to bushes as woods is to trees? A plum thicket is a gathering of plum bushes, isn't it? How about a green briar patch? Remember 'ol Br'er Rabbit sayin' to Br'er Fox, "Please! Don't throw me in that briar patch."

2LC, I'd heard of shin oak, but when I looked it up, it seems that shinnery oak is similar and is mostly in reference to scrub oak growth. My aunt used to refer to the area where I live as "little Jack." I thought it was because we were close to Jacksboro, TX, but she explained that this area has a lot of small blackjack oak trees that didn't grow much over 20' tall. Thus, this area was called little Jack in reference to those trees.

 

[dave1949]

It took me a while to get used to how New England folks use "bush." A "sugar bush" is a stand of maple syrup (sugar, hard rock maple) trees. A "lilac bush" is a patch of lilac bushes, probably due to natural spreading. I guess that regional use of "bush" can refer to any group or stand of trees or bushes that are the same.

 

[Western]

I think I would rather have 1 "bush", so I dont have to tend to several "bushes" and end up lost in the "brush"?

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Now I know what all those wooden handled hairy things are floating down Brushy Creek. Has anyone mentioned thicket yet? Isn't a thicket to bushes as woods is to trees? A plum thicket is a gathering of plum bushes, isn't it? How about a green briar patch? Remember 'ol Br'er Rabbit sayin' to Br'er Fox, "Please! Don't throw me in that briar patch."

2LC, I'd heard of shin oak, but when I looked it up, it seems that shinnery oak is similar and is mostly in reference to scrub oak growth. My aunt used to refer to the area where I live as "little Jack." I thought it was because we were close to Jacksboro, TX, but she explained that this area has a lot of small blackjack oak trees that didn't grow much over 20' tall. Thus, this area was called little Jack in reference to those trees.

And then there's the Tulies...

 

[Larro Darro]

No matter what they were called before, {limbs, branches, saplings, bushes or tops} when piled together, it is a brush pile. Until you burn it. Then it's just ashes.

 

[Bird]

Until the Fall of 2002, I lived in Brushy Prairie, TX, but the mailing address was Frost, TX, a little town 12 miles north of us. And we had a brushy creek, but not by that name.

 

[jinman]

Bird, just down the road from me is Brushy Creek Vineyard. They are nothing about brush piles, but what they sell will turn your brain to mush. . . which rhymes with brush.:confused2:

 

[Western]

Makes you wonder how they came up with.."brush" your teeth, hair "brush"?? I guess "bush" your teeth or hairbush just wasn't effective:laughing:

 

[Bird]

I don't know how they came up with a lot of our words; some that are the "true" name and some that are "nicknames?". When I lived in the Brushy Prairie area, I was about a quarter mile from a creek that ran into Navarro Mills Lake. If you find a map of that lake, it has that creek labeled as "Harris Branch", but I'll bet if you asked around down there where "Harris Branch" is, you couldn't find anyone who knows. But if you asked where "Snake Creek" is, they all know exactly what you mean. And Snake Creek was not so named because of any reptilian critters; it's called that because it wanders, turns, and twists so much.

 

[Marveltone]

While winging his way over the wilderness, the backwoods bush pilot had a brush with death when he ditched his plane in the tulies. He scampered through the thicket 'till he got caught up in the briar patch, spied a hedge row of shinnery bordering the hinterland. He stomped through the scrub, bumbled through the bramble and boscage and wallowed through the weeds and finally escaped the shrubbery. That was the last time he flew over the outback.

I'll go back to my corner now.

Joe

 

[ArtMech]

:confused2::confused2:
I thought bush is a rubberized insert of vehicle suspension...

 

[jinman]

Very nice Joe! I think you're grasping at straws. . .but not the kind they give you at Dairy Queen.

 

[bcp]

Until the Fall of 2002, I lived in Brushy Prairie, TX, but the mailing address was Frost, TX, a little town 12 miles north of us. And we had a brushy creek, but not by that name.

And a Brush Prairie, WA, just south of Battle Ground.

https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=brush+prairie+wa&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x5495b1636311b807:0x289f71f5c8e4b52,Brush+Prairie,+WA&gl=us&ei=xVgjUonnFeOZiQLrmIG4Bg&ved=0CIMBELYD