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What the? That's not what it means here.; what words mean in your country
Topic Started: Apr 24 2007, 05:24 PM (7,367 Views)
ekny
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Well, what's oddest about this regional stuff is the geography is not really proximate: you'd think if they said it in PA they'd say it in NY or NJ, but that's just not the case.
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Washuai
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Well, what's oddest about this regional stuff is the geography is not really proximate: you'd think if they said it in PA they'd say it in NY or NJ, but that's just not the case.


That's because it isn't just about how many miles are between areas, but rural versus urban, frequency of visitors from out of town, out of state, out of the country, and more.

Jimmies, what's sad, is the reason it got applied to chocolate sprinkles, is because it is from the southern states and used to be a racial slur for black people. I'm going to say black, saying African American is tiresome & even that offends some people.

However, I don't think people would look at you on for wanting them on your ice cream, because they think you're being racist. They'd probably be associating it with jimmy.

Fairy bread look like a serious smack of uber carbs, but I'd like to try some.
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aj57
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other than the scone thing (it's a one-off aberration that must go back to my childhood), i have adapted the rest of my pronunciation to where i live now (canada) so i now say tomayto. the hardest adaptation was the "oo" sound, like look and book, they were the hardest words for me to convert to canadian from scottish. after 40 odd years i still have trouble with those words.
on the issue of foods, cbg you may appreciate this, i was at BMO field at Exhibition Place in Toronto (this is the brand new venue for our brand new professional soccer team) and there was an interesting item on the menu at the snack bar - a chip butty for $4.00. Needless to say, there was a lot of head scratching in the line up.
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abzug
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Washuai, I've never heard THAT meaning for "jimmy"!

But as for the racist implications, I was aware of that (not as a kid, but now, as an adult) and it makes sense that in the Boston area it's a term which is still used, since Boston hasn't had the most progressive racial history. 'Course, I don't know how to explain why the term was used where ekny grew up.
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ekny
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Beats me. :) We had all kinds of odd regional stuff: we called subs (submarine sandwiches) 'hoagies'. :huh:
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Canadabadgirl
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aj57
Apr 27 2007, 10:53 PM

on the issue of foods, cbg you may appreciate this, i was at BMO field at Exhibition Place in Toronto (this is the brand new venue for our brand new professional soccer team) and there was an interesting item on the menu at the snack bar - a chip butty for $4.00. Needless to say, there was a lot of head scratching in the line up.

Ha! Excellent! I'll bet that half the crowd at that stadium (which I can see form where I'm sitting now!) will be of the European/Asian/West Indian immigrant variety, because Toronto's still a hockey town. It would be interesting to see what they all make of that menu. As an aside, I love the way northerers pronounce the word "butty", especially "bacon butty".

I've given up on my accent ever making sense to anyone, so I admire your success in conforming. I do compromise and say "To-may-toe" when I'm on this side of the Atlantic and "to-mah-to" when I'm in the UK or St.Lucia and I switch other things more or less automatically, because it makes life easier. Just getting around means changing things like "car park" and "parking lot", "boot" and "trunk", "bonnet" and "hood" and "lift" and "elevator". Not changing stuff like that makes life as complicated as the fact that the "first floor" may or may not be one level above street level!

It's a beautiful and varied language...
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Lis
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thanks to Subway, the word "sub" is catching on a little here, but the most common word is still "roll". sandwich is self explanatory, and it is often shortened to "sambo". australia's love to shorten words then put an "o" on the end, especially with male nicknames, ie: david > davo, robert > robbo, etc.

my friends and i like to muck around and take this to the extreme....

"wanna go to Engos and grab a 2 buck schooie?"

translation:

"do you want to go to Engadine pub and get a 2 dollar glass of beer?"

'Engadine' is a suburb in the south of Sydney, i've not been there personally (i'm in northern sydney), but my friend has and apparently they have $2 schooners of beer on particular evenings. a 'schooner' is how we measure our beer, not quite a pint but bigger than a half pint. a 'middie' is the other measurement, very small, don't bother with it. lol.
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Cassandra
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A schooner of beer, eh? Sounds much more exotic than asking for a pitcher!

The most common word in the UK is still "roll" but the word "sub" is also catching on. Sandwich is often shortened to "sarnie". In Scotland, we also use a lot of local terms such as a "jam butty" (or sausage or chip)!

Another one I remembered is that what we call cider is alcoholic but I think it is pure apple juice in the US. There's a little bit of variation across the UK with cider. We import mass produced, clear, fizzy cider in Scotland (we're lazy!) whereas dark, cloudy, non-fizzy cider called "scrumpy" is brewed locally in the south of England/Wales. Cider is generally served cold in Scotland but warm in England. And I don't think it's just to do with the weather! :)
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Lis
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i'm pretty sure we don't have the alcoholic cider you have, or if so not readily available i would think. i'd love to try it one day though. we have what the US called their cider, but we just call it sparkling apple juice. mmmm i like that stuff.

i've heard of 'sarnie', through my obsession with british tv, as well as the fact that my dad is british :lol:
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aussiebadgirl
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In Australia we use slang names to refer to what part of the country we are from.

Im from Queensland so I'm known as a Banana Bender.

If your from New South Wales you are known as a Cockroach. (Yuk)

If you are from Western Australia you are also known as a Sandgroper.

And if you are from Tasmania you are sometimes refered to as having Two-heads.

Does this happen elsewhere in the world?
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microsofty
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Lis
Apr 28 2007, 03:32 PM
i'm pretty sure we don't have the alcoholic cider you have, or if so not readily available i would think. i'd love to try it one day though. we have what the US called their cider, but we just call it sparkling apple juice. mmmm i like that stuff.

South African ciders are all alcoholic as well. We refer to the sparkling apple juice by its brand name, which is "Appletizer".
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abzug
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Cider here isn't sparkling, it's unpasteurized apple juice (essentially). Apple juice is more clear and synthetic tasting. And then we have what we call "hard cider" which is what you folks call cider, and it's alcoholic, and carbonated, and a favorite of college students because it's sweeter (and therefore to college students, more tasty) than beer.

And, from the wonderful Internet, the difference between apple cider and apple juice: "Fresh cider is raw apple juice that has not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particles of pulp or sediment."
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Lis
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microsofty
Apr 29 2007, 03:35 AM
South African ciders are all alcoholic as well. We refer to the sparkling apple juice by its brand name, which is "Appletizer".

mmmm i love appletizer! you can get it in Australia & especially around where i live as my suburb has the largest South African population in Australia.
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microsofty
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Lis
Apr 29 2007, 04:40 AM
mmmm i love appletizer! you can get it in Australia & especially around where i live as my suburb has the largest South African population in Australia.

Yeah, Appletizer has a huge export market - I think they export something like 80% of their produce. Do you get Grapetizer there as well? Same as Appletizer, just made from grapes and you get in in red and white. Lately they started to produce Peartizer as well, but I don't think that it was such a huge success - I haven't seen it around for a while. Living amongst all those South Africans you probably also have things such as fruit chutney, rooibos ("red bush") tea and biltong? Biltong is an Afrikaans word for which there really is no English equivalent, although I think the Americans call it "beef jerky" or something like that.
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Cassandra
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Yeah, we have Appletise too in the UK. Haven't heard of Grapetizer but that might be me or it may be called something different. We have a red/white grape drink called Schloer but I think it may be European.

BGEp1
2&3,Apr 28 2007, 03:32 PM
In Australia we use slang names to refer to what part of the country we are from ..... Does this happen elsewhere in the world?
There are slang names for people within the UK. Note their use depends on context as they are sometimes used in a derogatory sense:

  • 'Jock' = Scotsman (Scottish for Jack)
  • 'Limey' = Englishman (something to do with limes preventing scurvy, I think?)
  • 'Taffy' = Welshman (short for Dafydd, which is Welsh for David)
  • 'Paddy' = Irishman (short for Padraig, which is Irish for Patrick)
Also there are names for people from various cities/regions, e.g.

  • 'Geordie' = Newcastle/Tyneside (form of George)
  • 'Scouser' = Liverpool (from a meat stew)
  • 'Brummie' = Birmingham (from the local name?)
  • 'Weegie' = Glasgow (short for Glaswegian)
and so on. I think I've bored you all enough!

ETA - Personally I think the Australia names are much more interesting!!
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