No probably not Gotta loooove the bureaucrats
That's an excellent philosophy to live by, reminds me of things i've been told about my grandad i never got to meet, he was told to do other things but his passion was science and chemistry, he went on to do some pretty awesome things and he made such a big contribution to new zealand and australia that there's an award in his name so people will follow in his footsteps one day

US compared to UK:
"friend" for "mate"
"Elevator" for "Lift" - I happen to prefer the latter as it is easier and quicker to say "
"cookie" for "biscuit"
"lunch" for "tea". In the US "tea" is strictly a beverage not a meal.

in New Zealand "tea" is dinner. My boyfriend who's american calls "dinner" "supper", while to us kiwis "supper" is usually a light snack of milk and biscuits before bed.

NZ compared to US:
again the Mate for Friend
Jelly for Jello
Jam for Jelly
breakfast roll for biscuit
biscuit for cookie

confuddling much?

In the US dinner and supper are used interchangeably. Some people over here call lunch "dinner" or "luncheon" then we have something called "brunch" which is a late breakfast/early lunch, hence = brunch. Does any other country have a meal called "brunch"?

we have brunch! Lol woo getting excited over brunch haha
my bf always calls it supper, never dinner
luncheon here is like a fancy lunch party
only place i've heard of dinner being used instead of lunch was Uk's school 'dinners' at lunch time

This is fun....great thread...I'm learning alot.

I love how in the UK they say "aubergene" for eggplant. Its so much more elegant.

Or they pronounce aluminum foil as al-u-minium foil

thax! me too .. who knew small topics such as dinner or cookies could be so interesting

i never actually knew that aubergene and eggplant were the same thing hahaha

i say aala-min-yim and i hear people sometimes say a-loo-min-im ehck the world aluminum sounds weird now lol

I was in the south (Texas) at a restaurant and the waitress asked me "Can I get you a coke?" which I thought was strange since restaurants usually give you a choice of beverage (ice tea, water, coke, sprite, etc).

Then the people I was with said that in the South "coke" is synonymous with any "beverage or drink". So basically their servers are asking you "what would you like to drink?".

Ya learn something new every day

Yeah I heard that somewhere, that coke just meant a drink. Still, even though I know that, it would catch me off guard to hear that.
Waiter: Would you like a coke?
Me: Umm...sure.
Waiter: What kind?
Me: Ummm....the brown kind???

Some Canadianisms:

Tuque - Pronounced "toook" (rhymes with duke) a knit stocking cap. Essential in our winter!
Two-Four - A twenty-four box of beer.
Shinny - A game of ice hockey.
Tim's - The exceptionally popular coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Horton's. Seriously, there's three within sight of each other on one street where I live!
Timbit - A pastry that I believe is called a "doughnut hole" elsewhere.
Double-double - A coffee with two cream, two sugar
Chesterfield - A sofa or couch. This one's slowly disappearing.
Pop - Soda
Z - It's "zed", not "zee".
Giver - Not in the sense of someone who gives, this is East-coast speak for "exert extra effort". E.g. "to push the truck out of the ditch you'll have to really giver".
Serviette - a napkin.
Eavestrough - rain gutters
Loonie - Canadian dollar, because our dollar-coin features a Loon on the front.
Toonie - A two-dollar coin.

lol yea. Well I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and there we said pop. I thought it was strange too that they all said coke. People still point out to me that I say pop. lol. And point out that I am a yankee.

One other thing that I thought of. Americans and Canadians say "route" differently. Americans rhyme it with "doubt", whereas Canadians rhyme it with "boot".

I was in Canada once (love, love, love the country by the way = one of my favorite places I've visited).

We stopped to buy beer and was surprised that the store was empty except for a cashier, a conveyor belt and I think labels of the beer stuck to the wall to show what brands the store carried.

At the time (and this was yeeeeears ago) you had to place your beer order with the cashier who would announce your order in a microphone. A few moments later your order would role out on the conveyor belt.

We thought that was so different. Here in the US our grocery or liquor stores have it on the shelves.

I live in England and I hate the word mate, to me it's a position on a ship and nothing more! I always use the word friend.
I also never say tea to mean lunch, although sometimes I hear people refer to dinner as tea, which I find weird. I call my meals breakfast, lunch and dinner. Brunch would come mid-morning between breakfast and lunch (obviously ), and supper is a late night meal/snack before bed, but I generally don't eat those meals anymore, although I used to when I was a child. If I got in really late for something and just had a quick meal I would proabably call that supper rather than dinner. Luncheon would be a proper meal with others, like a fundraiser or charity thing.

Glad you liked Canada, Zauberlinda. Yeah, that's an old setup. We have nice, modern, normal liquor stores now

In the places where you guys all live, is there one place in the country that the rest of the country dislikes? For Canada it's Toronto. Snobby, dirty, big Toronto. There was actually a Canadian film named "Let's All Hate Toronto". Pretty much sums it up.

I say route like rhyming with "boot" and I'm american.

I always tend to think Western Australia and Nothern Territory are on the outer. Its like, the eastern states are sisters and we are the estranged cousins.

I was reading a random site yesterday when looking for something and i remembered a whole bunch of kiwi things that are maybe a bit different
for starters kiwi stuff is called Kiwiana the ana pronounced as ahna not anna

anyway we have Jandals which are also called flip-flops and thongs around the world but here its jandals.
http://www.apsara.co.nz/images/T/ki...koru_200pix.jpg
on those jandals the design is a koru, which is a Maori traditional pattern
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flops

we have kiwi fruit, which for some odd reason americans seem to like calling them kiwis .. lol

then theres the good ol' Wellys which is what we call gumboots/wellington boots

oh and theres Togs, which are bathingsuits/swimwear .. when i first mentioned that word to the bf he had no idea what i was on about .. Lol .. so it's like "Grab your togs and we'll go for a swim" no idea where the word togs came from

biscuit = cookie
Kiwi = New Zealander
bloke = man
kiwi = NZ flightless native bird
brassed off = disappointed, annoyed
kiwifruit =chinese gooseberry, kiwi
chippie = potato chip
“ladies, a plate” = please bring a dish of food to share
chocka = full
cocky, cow-cocky = dairy farmer
mate = buddy, close friend
chook= chicken
metal road = a gravel road surface
college = high school
milo = hot chocolate drink
corker!= great!
motorway= freeway
crib = small holiday home in Southland
Nana = grandmother
crook = sick, poorly
nappy = diaper
dairy = mini supermarket / convenience store
dreaded lurgy = cold or flu
ding = minor accident, car damage
gander = take a look
Godzone = New Zealand
flat stick, flat tack = as fast as possible
flog = steal
half pie = half heartedly, poorly performed
hard case = joker, comedian, witty person
hard yakka = hard work
heaps = a lot
hooray = goodbye
hottie = hot water bottle
wop wops = isolated area of land
wobbly = throw a tantrum
whinge = complain/whine
suss = figure something out
smoko = break, rest period
she'll be right = everything will be ok
shark and taties = fish and chips
rough as guts = unpolished
jack up = to arrange something

edit; just remebered Duvet...i think americans call them comforters? it's pronounced do vay .. i can't grasp the word comforter lol

wwheew thats alot of typing .. lol

Hmm, perhaps it's more local than I thought. In all the American TV shows I watch (and, if memory serves, from my last visit to Maine) it's rhymed with "doubt". Well, there certainly are loads of different dialects in countries as large as the States.