lingobingo
Senior Member
English - England
In the UK it would most likely be called a ball of wool, or maybe a skein of wool.
RM1(SS)
Senior Member
English - US (Midwest)
A ball of yarn.
In AE, it's ball /skein of yarn.
The yarn is wool if it is made from the hair of a sheep or another animal. If it is made of a synthetic material such as acrylic, it is not wool.
lingobingo
Senior Member
English - England
If it is made of a synthetic material such as acrylic, it is not wool.
This is true, of course. But in the UK we still tend to use “knitting wool” as a generic term for any yarn we might buy or use for that purpose – even if it’s cotton. 
[Wool/yarn] Is there any difference between the terms
Yarn is a generic/class term - yarn describes anything that is spun from any fibrous material and that looks or acts like string . Nylon yarn; cotton yarn, flax yarn, etc.
Wool is used in various senses that can be understood from the context, but can only refer to "sheep's/goats* hair".
The material with which the lady is knitting is, in fact technically known as "Woollen yarn", although I doubt many people would call it that.
*There are exceptions to this when referring to various "sheep-like" animals when the name of the animal is used: ", e.g. "Llama wool".
Keith Bradford
Senior Member
English (Midlands UK)
What PaulQ says is true, but a different distinction is simply that ball/skein of yarn is favoured in AE and ball/skein of wool is preferred in BE.
This is true, of course. But in the UK we still tend to use “knitting wool” as a generic term for any yarn we might buy or use for that purpose – even if it’s cotton.
Yes, indeed.
I remember trying to buy wool yarn for knitting when I was living in England years ago. It was hard to get people to understand that I meant wool made of sheep hair. There was even a small wool shop that had no wool wool at all.
Also, any thread used for sewing was cotton, even if it was made of polyester and had never seen a cotton plant. That seemed strange to someone like me, who had grown up surrounded by cotton fields.
ewie
Senior Member
English English
Hildy, your wool wool reminds me of my cork cork
That's a good one. Thank you for the reference.
Egmont
Senior Member
English - U.S.
Now that credit cards are made in a variety of presumably prestigious metallic and carbon-fiber materials, can one describe a traditional one as "plastic plastic"?
