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A comment on If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming. Parent comment

Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by Timothee on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @01:38AM (#2007299)
White goods are washing machines, dish washers, fridges…, while brown goods are the audio/video stuff (TVs, stereo).

Kind of old fashion but based on the typical color of these items (mostly from a couple of decades or more ago: washing machines and fridges are in many colors and A/V stuff is almost always black and/or silver)

According to Wikipedia, it seems to be mostly a UK idiom.

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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by merijnv on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @04:21AM (#2007546)
This idiom appears exactly the same in Dutch (and thus possibly other languages too?)
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by gtufano on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @08:47AM (#2008040)
Italian too. We could probably say that this is an European thing. ;)
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by moozeek on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @05:52AM (#2007681)
German as well :) (Weisse Ware / braune Ware)
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by cgrand-net on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @05:47AM (#2007675)
In French too (produits blancs/bruns).
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by kawera on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @09:27AM (#2008176)
Portuguese too: branco/marrom
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by WildUtah on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @04:01PM (#2009767)
Línea blanca in Spanish
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Re:If people tried to pay for other services like they try t... by ra on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @09:46AM (#2008235)
Browngoods refers to Bakelite. Once, all radios / radiograms were made of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite
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