What do you call these things? These interactive maps show the language divide in Australia

Scallops or potato cakes? Swimmers, cozzies or togs? Slippery dip or slippery slide? While Australian English is mostly the same all over, there are some regional variations.

There is little regional variation in accents. Most people are familiar with the long “a” used by some South Australians versus the short “a” used elsewhere. But there are larger differences in vocabulary, with a number of regionally specific words.

This was highlighted recently when a tweet kicked off a war of words over the correct name for a (delicious) oval-shaped piece of potato that has been battered and deep-fried. These are known as potato scallops or scallops in north-eastern Australia, potato cakes in south-eastern Australia, and potato fritters in South Australia.

To date, the only comprehensive survey of variation in Australian regional terms I’m aware of comes from a PhD thesis published in 1992 by Pauline Bryant. There is also the word map produced jointly by the ABC and Macquarie Dictionary, but this appears to rely on random submissions from readers.

Bryant is now a visiting fellow at the school of language studies at ANU, and has kindly allowed us to reproduce some of the maps from her thesis. Although the survey was completed in the late 1980s, the terms and trends we’ve selected are still mostly current as far as we can tell.

Bryant surveyed the word or words used to describe 72 things across all states, though with only a few survey sites in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. From the results, she identified four main regions of “lexical usage”.

Here, you can see the geographic trends for seven terms:

Potato scallops, potato cakes, potato fritters

The terms for the fried potato snack show a divide between the southern states, with potato cake favoured in Victoria and southern New South Wales, changing to scallop or potato scallop in NSW through to Queensland. South Australians maintain some individuality with the term potato fritter.

Bathers, swimmers, cozzies, togs

Bathers is used frequently in the southern regions and WA, with togs used less frequently. Swimmers and cozzies are used in NSW, and togs is prominent in Queensland.

Slippery dip, slippery slide, slide

The common piece of play equipment was mostly known as a slippery dip in NSW and South Australia, and slide in Victoria and WA. Around the border of NSW and Victoria the term slippery slide was used, which is also the term used in Queensland.

Garbage bin, rubbish bin, dust bin

In all regions, the word bin is used on its own, but there are clear regional distinctions between garbage bin and rubbish bin.

Devon, fritz, strasburg, German sausage

This processed lunch meat was one of the most diversely named when the survey was carried out. This is apparently due in some part to the older, German-sounding names falling out of use from the first and second world war onwards and being replaced with more English-sounding names. The number of names for this meat has probably decreased more recently as production has become less localised.

Port, suitcase/bag

The Australia-wide term is suitcase or case, but the term port is still used in Queensland and parts of NSW.

Bubbler, drinking fountain, tap

Bubbler is the most common term in NSW for this water-dispensing apparatus. Other areas prefer drinking fountain or tap.

Credit for drinking fountain image - russellstreet/flickr.