Remember the great Twitter potato war of 2014? Depending where in Australia you grew up, you know those delicious battered, deep-fried golden roundels as either ‘potato cakes’ or ‘potato scallops’.

But there are plenty of other linguistic fault lines in Australia. The boffins at the Macquarie Dictionary have mapped Australian regional language, including feedback from amateur contributors. Browse your own regionalisms, discover in other parts of Australia, and search for terms that mystify you. As they say in Perth, that’s mint.

Now, whether you’re a sandgroper or a banana-bender, a croweater or a gumsucker, let’s see which side of the border you fall on…

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Swimwear

If you grew up in Queensland you might change into your swimming ‘togs’. The word originally meant ‘clothes’ – especially an outer garment – and originates from the Latin ‘toga’. The same clothing theme is reflected in names such as ‘swimsuits’ and ‘swimming costumes’, which in NSW and Queensland get abbreviated to ‘swimmers’, as if the garment itself is doing the swimming. But only in Sydney is a swimming costume known as a ‘cossie’.

The term ‘bathers’ – used in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria – harks back to swimming’s history as a leisure pursuit. During the 18th century, therapeutic bathing became popular at mineral spas and seaside resorts.

Growing up in Victoria I always knew men’s swimming briefs as ‘Speedos’, after the swimwear brand (importantly, Australians use the plural while Americans refer to ‘a Speedo’), but in Queensland they’re ‘dick togs’ (DTs, in polite company), and ‘ball-huggers’ in WA.

Men in NSW, meanwhile, mock ‘dick-stickers’, ‘dick-pokers’ and ‘dick-pointers’. But to Sydney’s serious-minded, they’re ‘sluggos’ (short for ‘slug-huggers’), and sometimes ‘scungies’ (especially among surfers).

‘Scungies’ are also girls’ sports briefs in NSW – the sort worn for modesty over regular underpants and under netball skirts. (In North Queensland, they’re ‘bum shorts’.) But in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, they’re called ‘bloomers’. This name reflects the history of women’s sportswear, which was modelled on the ‘Bloomer suits’ American feminists had devised in the 1850s.

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Fruit and veg troubles

What are shallots? To most Australians, they’re small brown onions. But in Sydney, ‘shallots’ are what other Australians call ‘spring onions’. Now introduce spinach, and watch things get more complicated. Sydneysiders call ‘spinach’ what Victorians call ‘silverbeet’. Beta vulgaris is also known as Swiss chard – as opposed to Spinacia oleracae, which in NSW is called ‘English spinach’.