Binjies and bubblers
Apr. 5th, 2008 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyWhen you see a baby (or a cat or whatever) lying on its back and you go to tickle its belly, what do you say? In my family we say, "I'm going to tickle your binjy!" or "Look at that big binjy!" I always wondered about that, because I never heard anyone else say it; other people always say belly or tummy. It wasn't until I did a unit of linguistics at university and we used Aboriginal languages in a translation exercise that I realised that, thanks to my mother's time as a midwife (and my time as a baby) in central Australia, we had absorbed the Pitjantjatjara word for "belly" and brought it home south with us.
Anyway, so I love regional dialect things, which is why I grabbed this meme when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yaaresse did it.
1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
That would be a stream or a creek.
2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
A (shopping) trolley. And the grocery store would be a supermarket (large) or grocer's (small).
3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
Well... a container to carry a meal in would be a lunchbox, but they're not metal. Most lunchboxes I've seen are plastic: adults seem to use any old Tupperware(-type) container, schoolchildren often have special lunchboxes with compartments and a fitted drink bottle (or sometimes just a brown paper bag). My lunchbox looks like this only with a dragonfly pattern (and I don't normally carry the chopsticks with it).
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
A frying pan.
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
A sofa.
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
A gutter/the guttering.
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
At the front of the house, it's a verandah. At the back, it's a deck or a patio.
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soft drink.
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Erm, well. This is asking about pancakes (or pikelets if they're the little ones or crepes if they're the thin ones), but I wouldn't eat them for breakfast (they're a dessert, except for the savoury crepes eaten for lunch/dinner) and I wouldn't necessarily serve them with syrup.
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
I've not actually had to say this for years. My family always called them dagwoods or dagwood dogs; these days I'd probably call it a roll or a salad roll (or a whatever-was-on-it roll). If I was ordering one in a café, I'd call it whatever it was called on the menu.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
The little posing pouch things are speedos, the baggy shorts are board shorts. Swimming costumes in general are togs (for kids) or bathers.
12. Shoes worn for sports.
If it's for a specific sport, then by the name of the sport, as in football boots, tennis shoes, etc. The generic term for them would be runners.
13. Putting a room in order.
Is to tidy it up.
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
A firefly.
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
A slater (beetle).
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
A seesaw. This reminds me of first-year linguistics, when we learnt about isoglosses. An isogloss is the geographical area in which everyone uses the same word for a particular item. One of the Australian isoglosses used to illustrate the concept was the term for the piece of playground equipment that consists of a long piece of slippery metal fixed at an angle so people can slide down it. In the state of Victoria (where I live), that's a slide; in the neighbouring state of New South Wales, it's a slippery dip; except for an area on either side of the state border where it is known as a slippery slide.
17. How do you eat your pizza? (This is a dialect question?)
With my mouth. Oh, all right. I'd pick it up with my hands and eat it pointy-end first.
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
A garage sale.
19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner or tea.
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Rooms under the house are not terribly common in my neck of the woods, and they wouldn't normally involve furnaces or rec rooms. Um... if it had a proper floor, I'd call it a basement; if it was in a shop (for storage, etc), I'd call it a cellar; if was just a space under the house, I'd call it the space under the house.
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
A drinking fountain, but I can't say there's a lot of them in public places; it's more a school thing. I've also heard them called bubblers, but, while I understand the term, I wouldn't use it myself.
Extra bonus question fromyaaresse: what you call the sliced bread used to make sandwiches?
A sandwich loaf (as opposed to an unsliced loaf or a thicker-sliced toast loaf).
Anyway, so I love regional dialect things, which is why I grabbed this meme when
yaaresse did it.1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
That would be a stream or a creek.
2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
A (shopping) trolley. And the grocery store would be a supermarket (large) or grocer's (small).
3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
Well... a container to carry a meal in would be a lunchbox, but they're not metal. Most lunchboxes I've seen are plastic: adults seem to use any old Tupperware(-type) container, schoolchildren often have special lunchboxes with compartments and a fitted drink bottle (or sometimes just a brown paper bag). My lunchbox looks like this only with a dragonfly pattern (and I don't normally carry the chopsticks with it).
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
A frying pan.
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
A sofa.
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
A gutter/the guttering.
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
At the front of the house, it's a verandah. At the back, it's a deck or a patio.
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soft drink.
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Erm, well. This is asking about pancakes (or pikelets if they're the little ones or crepes if they're the thin ones), but I wouldn't eat them for breakfast (they're a dessert, except for the savoury crepes eaten for lunch/dinner) and I wouldn't necessarily serve them with syrup.
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
I've not actually had to say this for years. My family always called them dagwoods or dagwood dogs; these days I'd probably call it a roll or a salad roll (or a whatever-was-on-it roll). If I was ordering one in a café, I'd call it whatever it was called on the menu.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
The little posing pouch things are speedos, the baggy shorts are board shorts. Swimming costumes in general are togs (for kids) or bathers.
12. Shoes worn for sports.
If it's for a specific sport, then by the name of the sport, as in football boots, tennis shoes, etc. The generic term for them would be runners.
13. Putting a room in order.
Is to tidy it up.
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
A firefly.
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
A slater (beetle).
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
A seesaw. This reminds me of first-year linguistics, when we learnt about isoglosses. An isogloss is the geographical area in which everyone uses the same word for a particular item. One of the Australian isoglosses used to illustrate the concept was the term for the piece of playground equipment that consists of a long piece of slippery metal fixed at an angle so people can slide down it. In the state of Victoria (where I live), that's a slide; in the neighbouring state of New South Wales, it's a slippery dip; except for an area on either side of the state border where it is known as a slippery slide.
17. How do you eat your pizza? (This is a dialect question?)
With my mouth. Oh, all right. I'd pick it up with my hands and eat it pointy-end first.
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
A garage sale.
19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner or tea.
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Rooms under the house are not terribly common in my neck of the woods, and they wouldn't normally involve furnaces or rec rooms. Um... if it had a proper floor, I'd call it a basement; if it was in a shop (for storage, etc), I'd call it a cellar; if was just a space under the house, I'd call it the space under the house.
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
A drinking fountain, but I can't say there's a lot of them in public places; it's more a school thing. I've also heard them called bubblers, but, while I understand the term, I wouldn't use it myself.
Extra bonus question from
yaaresse: what you call the sliced bread used to make sandwiches?A sandwich loaf (as opposed to an unsliced loaf or a thicker-sliced toast loaf).