汤匙, 调羹, 匙羹

I would say 勺子/勺儿 are either older/more formal/not so commonly used words.

(Down here, something as simple as 卫生纸 gets you blank stares! It’s 口纸 to them.)

It’s sort of the same situation in the US, maybe subtler. I remember in Utah where I used to live we use the word “sluff” for skipping school. None of the other US states had that word and thus it’s only understood in Utah and you’ll receive a blank stare if you use it in Ohio. Same thing with “勺子”.

I would suggest that you know all of the substitution words, but it can be very exhausting to do as well.

You are right. Spoon is 匙羹 in Cantonese.

Most Chinese (i.e., the country folk) don’t use spoons very much. They drink soup and zhou from a bowl, and use chopsticks for any solid ingredients. Thus, while they certainly know their local word for spoon, they don’t use it very often, and even if they recognize the standard Mandarin term when they hear it on TV, they never use it at all.

Then they move to the city and get a job on the wait staff in a restaurant. A week or so later a foreigner walks in. They’re a bit startled because they’ve never seen one before, so when he asks for a “liddle”, it takes them a while to realize that he’s saying “ladle” with a foreign accent; and a bit longer to figure out that what he really wants is a spoon. What on earth would he want a spoon for?

This accounts for the fact that the waiter people often don’t understand 勺子 even when a native speaker asks for one, so it’s a reasonable theory, but I don’t know if it has anything to do with reality.

Incidently, Albert, I don’t think you’ve been using the wrong word. I’ve heard lots of Chinese use 勺子 for spoon, despite what the dictionaries say.