We are off to NZ for our hols in a few weeks and I have gathered from reading posts about NZ that words we say over here have a completely different meaning over there.
Can anyone give me some examples and also things NZ'ers say that have a different meaning over here!

Cheers


Sandra

Tramping (hiking/walking)
Jandals/thongs (flipflops)
Pants(trousers)

Hi Sandra... been trying to think..

If someone calls you a hardcase it means you are funny and amusing.

Jandals and thongs are flip flops

when they refer to Asians they mean Chinese and Japanese people not Indians or Pakistanis.

Yeah I remember the first time my parents met my girlfriend and she was going on about her thongs.

Can still see the look on their faces.

I had to chip in that thongs were flip flops.

Think they are still having trouble with double meaning words.

TT

Chilly bin/NZ Eskie/Aus Cool box/UK!

Dairy is the local grocery/newsagents

I remember sayin to a patient of mine in Aus I'd been rooting around in his bag for his glasses,the old bloke nearly fell out of bed - translated I'd been having sex in his bag!!! Think the meaning might be the same in NZ!!!

Kiwis use brandnames for generic products.

e.g. Janola = bleach, even if it's not Janola bleach.

If you ask for Ibuprofen you will get blank looks
you need to ask for the brandname - Nurofen

One that makes me laugh is a mufti police car. That is an unmarked police car. Mufti is used to describe non-uniform. I'd never heard it before and had to ask for an explanation when I was informed the kids were having a mufti day at school. I still fell about laughing when someone said they had seen a 'mufti police car'.
Of course there is the usual lollies = sweets (without sticks), and ice blocks = ice lollies, chips/chippies/cold chips = crisps and manchester = bedlinen & towels etc.

Paula

Paula

Why does Manchester mean bed linen?? Is it to do with a brand name of bed linen?

Hope everything is still hunky doory for you (is that the right spelling, it doesn't look right?)

Sandra

Maybe it was beacuse Manchester was a worldwide textile milling centre when Oz was a convict Colony

Manchester is a brand name by all accounts. Would a sheared sheep be a mufti in N.Z. I believe they have the same liking for sheep as do the Welsh

I don't know for sure why bed linen etc is called Manchester. I have been told its because Manchester was the centre of the textile industry world and where any imported linen would have come from, but wether its true i don't know.
Things are great for us at the mo, still waitnig for that visa though


Paula

Ordinary - being 'ordinary' is not good.

so the phrase - "it's been an ordinary sort of day" means "its been a shocking day"

Not so much a different meaning, but in NZ you cant order a cup of coffee anywhere, it has to be a flat white/long black/ short whatever..all espresso based.

THey also refer to web adresses as "dub.dub.dub dot _______"

I only asked yesterday about Manchester and was told it was cus of cotton mill centre, it's definitely not a brand and is a collective term for anything like towels/bedlinen (haberdashery - god that's an old fashioned name). I said in UK it wasn't called Manchester and they looked at me gone out!!

Some one in the office said 'fair dinkum' yesterday, I thought that was a rip taker but apparently they use it in common speech. Wierd.

Also Yadda, yadda, Yadda, which I think means blah, blah, blah!

Mash

Same thing happened to us! Plus it was a "Gold coin donation" (which means you pay a $1 or $2 coin...), so we were confused.

One I found out yesterday is that I said our house over looked a "field" of cows, and was told it was a "paddock"!

Another one - a light jumper (like one made out of t-shirt material) is called a "skivvy".

Everything is "neat", "cool" and "awesome" too!

Nicola