Friday, July 22, 2011

quicko: jandals

New Zealand slang for flip-flops.  One of the rare differences between New Zealand English and Australian English.  Evidently someone tried to market flip-flips as "Japanese sandals" and the name got abbreviated.

The primary other NZ-Australian difference I'm aware of is "duvet" (NZ) for "doona" (Australian).  (It's a "comforter" in America.)

2 comments:

Laetitia :-) said...

When I was growing up we called them quilts; I expect that was because of how they're labelled in the shops. Then I found out what a quilt actually is (and I also quilt now) so I've adopted 'doona'.

It's a bit like calling certain types of embroidery 'tapestry' when a real tapestry has a picture built into the fabric (a bit like Jacquard fabric) rather than stitched on afterwards. I think part of the problem is the mis-named Bayeaux Tapestry.

Unknown said...

They also call an eski a chully-bun (Chilly Bin? Who can tell?).