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Cut, jump, budge
2012/09/15
6:41pm
Jackie
Spring Green, WI
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When you're standing in line and someone gets in line ahead of you, what do you call it?  I grew up in western PA and most often heard it referred to as cutting in line.  Less frequently, I heard jumping the line. 

When we moved to WI, I learned the term here is budging.  I heard it all the time when I worked at the local elementary school.  "He budged!"  "No budging!" 

The first couple of times I heard it, I honestly had no idea what was meant.  Is this another case of Wisconsin Weirdness or do people budge elsewhere?

2012/09/16
2:07am
Ron Draney
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"Cutting" is the most common term where I grew up (Southern California, Seattle area, then southwestern New Mexico). Somewhere in there I also encountered separate names for someone already in line letting someone else cut in front of them ("ups") or behind them ("backs"); in some situations neither was allowed, while in others you might be allowed to give someone "backs" but not "ups".

2012/09/16
5:33am
Glenn
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Like you, cutting is the most common in my experience. I never heard of budging for that action. And I probably would be confused by it without a visual demonstration.

2012/09/16
4:58pm
Heimhenge
New River, AZ, USA
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I left Wisconsin in 99, so maybe that use came in later, but I never heard "budge" when I was there. I heard mostly "Hey, no cutting!" and occasionally "bumping."

2012/09/17
3:28am
Glenn
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That reminds me that we also used "butt in."

"He's butting in line."

2012/09/17
1:22pm
Jackie
Spring Green, WI
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I posted this same question on a Facebook group.  The responses there?  People from MN, WI, northern IL and Canada, all budge.  The rest of the country seems to use cut, jump, bump or butt.

2012/09/21
12:29pm
heathbug
Plano, Texas
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I always heard the term of "butting in line" or "cutting in line" (I'm from Texas). People used to say, "I'll let you in (in front of you) if you let me back up (to achieve your goal of being first)," Never heard of "budging". (It's always impolite, and could get you into a fight.)

2012/09/21
4:23pm
Ron Draney
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I just had an epiphany on this subject! A Usenet group I read on the subject of English usage is discussing queuing behavior, even where there's no physical queue (people apparently just know who's ahead of them and when it's their turn to go next), and I recalled a complaint in a Monty Python routine about rude people "barging at the queues".

Would it be completely out of line to guess that "budging" started as some Wisconsonian's mishearing of the word "barging" as pronounced by a British person?

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