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bubbler


noun a small fountain which ejects a jet of water into the drinker's mouth: *All you had to do was turn the tap and bend your pursed lips to the bubbler. –CLIVE JAMES, 1980. Compare bubble tap, drinking fountain, drinking tap, drink tap, fountain, water fountain.

Contributor's comments: Bubbler is not a sth. Qld word. Qld uses "Fountain". Bubbler is a NSW term.

Contributor's comments: Most locals seem to use this in Melbourne too, I think. Sometimes I'm not sure how much my words are affected by my Mum's growing up in the Hunter Valley and East Coast Tassie.

Contributor's comments: The word bubbler is occasionally used for drinking fountain in SA.

Contributor's comments: In NW Tasmania in the 1960s, we drank from drinking fountains, and I had never heard of a bubbler until I moved to Canberra in the 1970s.

Contributor's comments: I have lived in Brisbane all my life and ALL the students used "Bubblers" for water fountains. As do my parents, born and raised in Brisbane. It is obviously not just a NSW word as stated by a previous contributor.

Contributor's comments: In Melbourne where I grew up, we always called them a tap, rather than fountain or bubbler. Bubbler is a NSW term.

Contributor's comments: [Brisbane informant] A certain type of water-fountain is called a bubbler... the ones they have in primary schools with the tap part you turn.

Contributor's comments: At school in the 80's it was always a bubbler. It's still called that in Sydney schools.

Contributor's comments: I grew up in Melbourne and was used to the terms "drinking taps" or simply "the taps", particularly in school contexts. (I am a teacher) The term "bubblers" is used in the SE Qld town where I now live and teach.

Contributor's comments: [Riverina informant] Aren't they always called bubblers and should always be used as a necessary architectural addition to any building much beter than the ubiquitous bottle of water?

Contributor's comments: [Brisbane informant] I have lived in central NSW, Sydney (North, East and West), Brisbane (north) and Sunshine Coast and have never heard it called anything else but a 'bubbler' - I always thought that was the correct name for it... not that it was slang.

Contributor's comments: When I was a kid at primary school in the south west Riverina we always called the drinking fountains bubblers. I don't remember this word being used at High School in the mallee though.

Contributor's comments: I am from NSW and grew up using "bubbler". When I arrived in WA and went off to my new school using the same term, the locals thought I must have been using some extremely babyish terminology! They had never heard of the "bubbler" for drinking fountain and thought it was a very silly term!

Contributor's comments: I grew up in Newcastle but now live in Canberra which is a city of very mixed regional origins amongst the population, unlike the Hunter area. The word "bubbler" was always the standard word at school and even as an adult, however from a quick survey of the workplace, I found that the word was only known to Newcastle and Sydney people, with local Canberrans, Victorians and South Australians having not heard of the word before.

Contributor's comments: Growing up in Melbourne in the late 60s, it was a tap, but my children in Darwin now call it a bubbler - much more evocative name.

Contributor's comments: Children in Darwin area primary schools also drink from bubblers.

Contributor's comments: Bubbler was always the term we used. I grew up in the Tamworth region.

Contributor's comments: I first heard the word "bubbler" in the NT in 1984, used by a recently arrived person from Adelaide. I had never heard the word before. In Queensland Primary Schools one drank at "the taps".

Contributor's comments: I went to primary school in Canberra in the 1950s and we ALL called it a bubbler, so it's been around there a long time.

Contributor's comments: I grew up in Far Western NSW in a border town near both the VIC/SA borders, and we always said 'bubbler' for drinking taps. At high school in Northern Victoria, however, my peers thought this to be a silly term, one with which they were not acquainted. I asked around the workplace a few years ago, and the only other person who grew up using the term was from the SA Riverland.

Contributor's comments: I grew up in Brisbane in the 1980s and used many bubblers. Apparently it is also used in Wisconsin in the USA, but few other places in the US.

Contributor's comments: In the schools and parks of Dubbo they're bubblers.

Contributor's comments: We used the bubblers at school in Merriwa growing up. Interestingly, one of the rainwater bubblers (which shared its plumbing with the others) was known to produce "frog water" and was avoided like the plague.