Devon A Load Of Polony
Sun Herald
Sunday May 12, 2002
IN NSW we know it as devon, in South Australia it's fritz and in Perth they swear it's polony.
Whatever you call it, humble luncheon meat has emerged as one of the most controversial items in Australian English with a new study suggesting it has more regional names than almost any other object.
A joint project between Macquarie Dictionary and the ABC has found only male swimming costumes - known variously as cossies, sluggos or togs - have a similarly broad range of names.
Scores of other regional names have also emerged for concepts ranging from children's games to crustaceans and milk-bar treats.
Macquarie Dictionary editor Susan Butler said the Australian Word Map project showed the country had a wealth of interstate and inter-regional word differences.
``People are often astonished when they move, say from Queensland to Victoria, that people don't understand the words they are using," Ms Butler said. ``They are using words which are perfectly well understood in their own language community."
Developed to help stock the next edition of the Macquarie, the Word Map project was launched in March.
Internet users who log on to the ABC local radio website can view known regionalisms and contribute examples.
Ms Butler said the public had made more than 2,000 contributions with about half deemed suitable for posting.
Among the more colourful expressions unearthed are snot-block, which is a Victorian expression for a vanilla slice, and budgie-smugglers, a West Australian term for a male swimming costume.
Crayfish can variously be known as clawchies, crawchies, craydabs, jilgies, marrons and yabbies. The word is also applied to lobsters.
What in NSW is known as a bubbler, in Victoria and Tasmania is a bubble tap or drinking tap.
The generic name for an iced treat can be a by jingo, icy pole, paddle-pop or iceblock, according to submissions to the site.
Ms Butler said regional differences were established from a variety of sources. Some, like the varying names for devon, reflected different commercial trends where manufacturers or distributors provided similar products in different areas.
Ms Butler said other regionalisms reflected the backgrounds of the early settlers.
In South Australia, an influx of Cornish miners affected the local dialect and in Victoria, immigrants in the 1800s from northern England had a similar effect.
But compared to the US or Britain, regionalism in Australia is limited. Ms Butler said the uniformity of many of our early settlers, the transient nature of occupations such as droving and shearing and the levelling influence of the gold rush had restricted the number of local variations.
She said the fact that many regional terms referred to schoolyard and childhood concepts reflected that they were learnt early in life.
Ms Butler said that if enough regional differences were uncovered, Macquarie would consider publishing a book on them.
YOU SAY POTATO ... AUSTRALIAN REGIONALISMS
* In NSW we call them: cossies or swimmers.
In Sydney they're: dick stickers and sluggos.
In Western Australia they're: budgie-smugglers or sluggers.
* In parts of NSW we call them: garbage bins.
In Tasmania and Victoria they're: dustbins.
In other States and southern NSW they're: rubbish bins.
* In NSW we call it: peanut butter.
In Queensland, Perth and southern South Australia it's: peanut paste.
Source: Australian Word Map
© 2002 Sun Herald
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