I have a soft briefcase thing with a shoulder strap that I got through work, and I was using for a week or so. I stopped carrying it when my daughter referred to it as my new purse.

lol

Nah not a purse....a manbag.

Over here 'purse' refers exclusively to the thing you keep your money and cards in. Blokes use wallets and chicks use purses. Purses usually get carried around inside a bag.

Same here Dana. If someone said they got a new purse, I'd be thinking about the thing they carry their money in.

If they said they got a new handbag, I'd be imagining the things people are talking about in this thread.

Oh and glatt, tell you're daughter she's so not cool. Doesn't she know that if a man doesn't carry a manbag these days he's no-one?

Oh, she's too young to be teasing me about carrying a purse. She really, honestly thought I had a purse. That's why it stung so much.

This is one of those things where I've been force to be bilingual. I never used purses in the UK (always wallets) so I feel stupidly girly calling it a purse. But if I say handbag, there seems to be only a 50/50 chance they'll know what I mean, so purse it is.

I'm totally confused. To me, a wallet holds money, id & cards and goes into a purse or handbag.

to Brits too. they're the folding up things that men and some women have. Purses are the girly equivalent, often with a zip or clasp and limited credit card/paper money space. (Useless). A handbag is what a woman or brave man would put their purse or wallet in, alongside their glasses, spare tights/pantihose, tampons, whatever the hell else they carry.

purses are small. handbags hold purses or wallets.

Over here, even though a woman may carry something that looks like a wallet, it'll be called a purse because that's the feminine form of the word wallet.

Men carry wallets. Women carry purses inside their handbags.

OK purse to Brit or Aus = Coin purse to American. I googled images.

Coin purse!?!?!?!? thats that little round thing my grandpa had 40 years ago isn't it?



(What the hell am I doing in this thread anyway?)

you're such a girl classic.

pffft - whatever!

My purse, as for many women, tends to be the feminine version of Batman's Utility Belt, although I do admit that mine may be closer than most.

My current bag is one of those back-saver things from LL Bean. It's the "sand dune" color. I would have preferred the British Khaki (because I have the LL Bean briefcase and shoulder bag in that color already), but MomWolf bought it for herself and ended up not liking it, and giving it to me didn't involve the hassle of dealing with return shipping.

Thank FSM you dont have the tapestry one!!!

my counterpart at work bought his wife a $1200 Louis Vuiton purse. she'll prolly get the $500 wallet at some point.