Pillion

The term “pillion” seems to be a Rubik’s Cube term in my minds eye. I’ve looked it up online several times. It seems to meld the “ passenger seat of a bike, into the passenger’s themselves.........” This bikes pillion was pleased with the ride”. Here, we would never say.......” This bikes passenger seat was pleased with the ride”. We would leave out the “seat” entirely. And say...” The passenger was pleased with the ride”.....Or......” this bikes seat is very comfortable “.... Not...” This bikes seat and its passenger is very comfortable “. That’s cray cray. I guess I’m just tossing this around in the salad that is my mind. And would love to hear “ pillion” defined by those who ride in other parts, so far from my own. N hey...who else is on here in the pm trying to find ways to keep “the band” playing .

Torquex2 said:

The term “pillion” seems to be a Rubik’s Cube term in my minds eye. I’ve looked it up online several times. It seems to meld the “ passenger seat of a bike, into the passenger’s themselves.........” This bikes pillion was pleased with the ride”. Here, we would never say.......” This bikes passenger seat was pleased with the ride”. We would leave out the “seat” entirely. And say...” The passenger was pleased with the ride”.....Or......” this bikes seat is very comfortable “.... Not...” This bikes seat and its passenger is very comfortable “. That’s cray cray. I guess I’m just tossing this around in the salad that is my mind. And would love to hear “ pillion” defined by those who ride in other parts, so far from my own. N hey...who else is on here in the pm trying to find ways to keep “the band” playing .

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I,ve always known it as rider and pillion as long as 40 years ago when i started riding , just a term that I identify with .A passenger was for the car or any other means of transport ( not sure about a horse tho??) that wasnt the driver..
So should the two people on a motorcycle be driver and passenger instead of rider and pillion??

Andy Brooke said:

I,ve always known it as rider and pillion as long as 40 years ago when i started riding , just a term that I identify with .A passenger was for the car or any other means of transport ( not sure about a horse tho??) that wasnt the driver..
So should the two people on a motorcycle be driver and passenger instead of rider and pillion??

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Since both can “ride” on the bike, you’d be correct......” Both driver, and passenger, had a great ride”. I get “tyre,”. Or “tire.” But “seat,” Or “ pillion? Wonder where that name originates from .

When I started riding, The Harley's in the neighborhood were mainly Sportsters.....Which mostly had a solo saddle and rectangular pillion pad.....and as such were referred to as a pillion or ***** pad.

Torquex2 said:

Since both can “ride” on the bike, you’d be correct......” Both driver, and passenger, had a great ride”. I get “tyre,”. Or “tire.” But “seat,” Or “ pillion? Wonder where that name originates from .

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I believe the term pillion is for the seat behind the rider, so a passenger would sit on the pillion seat, so I guess bike owners in the past started to call their passengers a pillion for some reason?

Whatever you do, don't try and make sense of the English language.
As an example:

Chop down or chop up?​

One chops “down” a tree, but then chops “up” firewood.

Red or reed?​

Further confusion arises from words that are spelled the same but are pronounced differently. Route being pronounced either “root” or “rout”, read being pronounced “reed” or “red”. Other words that also fall into this special class of confusion are either, content, tear, dove, invalid, desert and sewer.

Silent Letters​

Then we find ourselves in a special little minefield, the world of words that have a silent letter in them. Some examples from this world of pain are gnat, knife, aisle, debt, soften and dumb.

“oo” words​

Our next stop on this train ride into the absurd are words that contain “oo” but sound different. Blood and flood sound like cud or mud. Good, hood, stood, wood, shook, brook, crook, look all sound alike. Food, boot, mood, scoot, roof and hoof all have a long “u” sound. Floor and door have long “o” sounds.

Buffalo what?​

We are now possibly at the deepest pit of grammatical hell with the following sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

This sentence is grammatically correct because buffalo is a noun, a hooved animal that is sometimes incorrectly called a bison, it is a city in New York State and it is also a verb that means to intimidate or overawe someone. So to paraphrase this sentence so that it does not hurt your brain, here goes. Bison from Buffalo, New York, that are intimidated by other bison in the community also intimidate other bison in Buffalo.

Andy Brooke said:

I believe the term pillion is for the seat behind the rider, so a passenger would sit on the pillion seat, so I guess bike owners in the past started to call their passengers a pillion for some reason?

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You’re correct. I’ve looked online, and many places, particularly Eastern countries refer to both seat and passengers as pillion’s.

I always thought it was the passenger, but the funny part is the first time I recall hearing it was from my English cousin, I had no idea what she was talking about.

Tripps said:

I always thought it was the passenger, but the funny part is the first time I recall hearing it was from my English cousin, I had no idea what she was talking about.

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So in fact there still seems to be some confusion about the term. Even in regions that have adopted it. Very interesting

" passenger seat of a bike, into the passenger’s themselves.........” This bikes pillion was pleased with the ride,". Here, we would never say.......” This bikes passenger seat was pleased with the ride”. We would leave out the “seat” entirely. And say...” The passenger was pleased with the ride, EH”.....Or......” this bikes seat is very comfortable, EH “.... Not...” This bikes seat and its passenger is very comfortable “. That’s cray cray. I guess I’m just tossing this around in the salad that is my mind. And would love to hear “ pillion” defined by those who ride in other parts, so far from my own. N hey...who else is on here in the pm trying to find ways to keep “the band” playing .

There, it should make more sense now, the Canadian was missing,
Unless you are referring to NewFoundLand, in which case, all of this is out the window, and you would need a translator