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"BUBBLER" ORIGIN REVEALED
Monday, March 23rd, 2009 -- 12:26 pm
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
"Bubbler," one of Wisconsin's most prominent regional terms, probably comes from a 1910s corporate marketing campaign.
The term "bubbler" is used mainly in southeast Wisconsin, where the Kohler Co. marketed its early drinking fountains around 1917, according to Joan Hall, editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English.
Those porcelain bowls contained "bubbling valves" that made the water bubble as it came through. The valves became known as "bubblers." Pretty soon, people started calling the whole product by that name.
Even though designs have changed, the term has stuck.
Hall says the term is used most often in Wisconsin but researchers have found examples of its use in Ohio and Massachusetts.
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