What do you call TV remote? Well, it turns out that where you live might influence your answer. In fact, there are 100 different words for it all over the country, according to our survey for TV Licensing.
Top of the list was, unsurprisingly, ‘the Remote/Remote’, with ‘Doofar’ (Doofer) and ‘Zapper’ completing the top 3. More unusual regional variants included ‘Fat Enhancer’ in Edinburgh, the ‘Rem Rom’ in Derby and even ‘Husband’s Toy’ in Lincoln.
It was also apparent that vagueness was no issue, with terms such as ‘Thing-a-ma-jig’, ‘Whatcha-ma-call-it’ and ‘Doobrie’ appearing in the list; terms we’ve all heard when the remote goes missing. And boy does it go missing a lot! In fact, to prevent this life annoyance, 1 in 3 have at least 4 ‘Channel Changers’.
But who loses the ‘Switcher’ the most? Northern Ireland, that’s who. The survey found the Northern Irish to be the most absent-minded with over half having misplaced it at least 4 times a year. The East Midlands, in contrast, were named as the most careful, with more than half claiming to have not lost the ‘TV Thing’ in the last 12 months.
The findings of the survey achieved extensive media coverage, landing on The Sun, The MailOnline, The Mirror and regional sites such as The Scunthorpe Telegraph, The Cambridge News and The Belfast Newsletter.
