Tasmanians do not have a word for this
Sep. 11th, 2009 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyThe florists across the road from my office are closing for a couple of weeks while the shop is remodelled, so they're having a clearance sale to get rid of all their stock. I'd never really thought about it before, but florists don't usually have sales, do they? They're like the anti-rug shop in that respect. Anyway, I selflessly did my bit for them on the way home, and bought myself a big bunch of bright pink sweet peas and a swathe of orchids in yellow and red and purple, and arranged them artistically (i.e. bunged them in a vase) and they're looking rather jolly, I must say. I do like a bright flower or two.
Today I read an article about Lexical Usage In South-Eastern Australia. (I know! My excitement-filled life.) It was based on some linguistic research that asked participants to look at a series of pictures or descriptions and name the objects in them. One of the questions was What special word do children say if they want to stop in the middle of a game and not get caught?. According to the research, Tasmanians do not have a word for this. All those poor Tasmanian children, not being able to stop to do up their shoe laces! How do they cope? My personal research (i.e. asking my colleagues) backed up the researchers' other findings on the matter. Namely, the three Victorians said 'barley' and the one South Australian said 'bars'.
The question about what it's called to give someone a ride on the handlebars of a bike was controversial, though: the answers I got were one 'dink', one 'double-dink', one 'dinky' and one 'donkey'. Which makes me wonder what it's called elsewhere, since 'dink' sounds completely made up. What do you call it?
Today I read an article about Lexical Usage In South-Eastern Australia. (I know! My excitement-filled life.) It was based on some linguistic research that asked participants to look at a series of pictures or descriptions and name the objects in them. One of the questions was What special word do children say if they want to stop in the middle of a game and not get caught?. According to the research, Tasmanians do not have a word for this. All those poor Tasmanian children, not being able to stop to do up their shoe laces! How do they cope? My personal research (i.e. asking my colleagues) backed up the researchers' other findings on the matter. Namely, the three Victorians said 'barley' and the one South Australian said 'bars'.
The question about what it's called to give someone a ride on the handlebars of a bike was controversial, though: the answers I got were one 'dink', one 'double-dink', one 'dinky' and one 'donkey'. Which makes me wonder what it's called elsewhere, since 'dink' sounds completely made up. What do you call it?