Is this the same English???

[martinlivings]

This week's Alien Loves Predator comic is highly appropriate for us here in the UK. You wouldn't think there would be that many differences from Australia, with only 200-odd years of slight separation, but they keep hitting me in the face.

Is this the same English language? Sometimes I wonder...

Some examples:

• PANTS - in Australia, this refers to trousers or slacks. In the UK, pants are underpants. Very confusing.
  
• VEST - Izz hit this one the other day. Here, a "vest" is what we'd call a tank top or a singlet, at least in women's fashion.
  
• THONGS - everyone knows this one. Back in Oz, I wore thongs all the time. Here, they'd be called flipflops, and thongs are g-strings.
  
• DADDY LONGLEGS - now this one confounded me. I heard UK people talking about all the daddy longlegs this year, and I was very confused, because I hadn't seen a single one. Then I saw something on the BBC about them, and realised that in Australia a daddy longlegs is a spider, but here it's a freakin' fly! And not just any fly. It looks like a mutant mosquito, with long legs (well duh!). Here is what the British call a daddy longlegs, and here is what we sensible Australians call one!

There's heaps more, but they'll do for the moment. Does anyone else have examples to suggest? splanky? speshal_k?

Comments

[speshal-k.livejournal.com]

Crisps!!

versus chips.


Also lollies over here are called sweets - they do have iced lollies but these are really icypoles.

I hadn't heard the daddy long legs one before. That's possibly the weirdest one yet!

[chrisb74.livejournal.com]

Dinner is one that catches me when I go to NZ - In Australia, you assume an evening meal. In UK based areas (like NZ), it could be either lunch or the evening meal.

Actually, "Pants" caught me in NZ the other day - I was looking for trousers, but was presented with underwear. Doh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner

[azhure.livejournal.com]

I dunno, but that crane fly is gross!

[martinlivings.livejournal.com]

True, but harmless, apparently, despite looking like a huge mossie!

[possbert.livejournal.com]

My first encounter with one of these buggers was in a hotel room in Aberystwyth in Wales. It was too intimidating for me to try and get it out of the window.

[possbert.livejournal.com]

Lollies in Oz, sweeties in the UK.

Right wing, war mongering bastard of a Prime Minister in Oz...oh...yeah... sorry, forget I spoke.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Semi - in Australia, short for semi-trailer. Probably pinched it from the yanks. In the UK, a semi-detached house (one common wall). Duplex in Aus.

Iight bulb/light globe. Synonymous in Aus, and I've forgotten which one you have to use in the UK to be understood.

Hole in the wall - Never heard it in Australia, but in the UK it's an ATM. Also known in the UK as a cashpoint.

I did get some funny looks in a department store in the UK for exclaiming "look at all the thongs!" when confronted with a large display of flip-flops.

I've forgotten a fair few since I de-emigrated.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_illumina_/]

It's light bulb here in the UK.

Some areas of the UK do use 'daddy-long-legs' for spiders - in the North-east for example.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

That would be why I was bemused at Martin's comments about giant mosquitos then - I was living in Gateshead :)

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Scotland and always thought of the daddy-long-legs as the spiders. They're the ones with the massively concentrated venom... in quantities too small to affect a human.

Also
quilt or duvet in the UK = doona in Australia.

receipt in the UK = docket in Australia (or did when I emigrated, it may have fallen out of favour recently)

I still use 'the hole in the wall' for the ATM, at least when talking to my family.