You say to-may-to, I say to-mar-to

Everyday Stranger is one of my favourite blogs. Helen has such a way with words, it makes me feel tongue tied, (or is that finger-tied as I'm typing not talking ...) and awkward.

It had been a little while since I'd been over there, so I had a bit of catching up to do. I came across this post, and it just cracked me up.

It deals with the linguistic differences between America and England.

I don't think I even knew until a few years ago that 'aluminum' and 'alminium' were the same thing, it still doesn't really feel right! I just know though if I was in America I couldn't make myself say aluminum, it just wouldn't come out.

Same with the word semi. I'm not sure if this is just part of America or not, but the pronunciation 'sem-eye' always tickled my funny bone for some reason. Here we pronounce it sort of like 'sem-ee'

A lot of our words in Australia come from England, not surprisingly. Some Americanisms do creep in though.

We have mobile phones (or just mobiles), not cell phones.
We have both flats and apartments, but flat is the more common usage.
We fill the car up with petrol, not gas.
We say nappies, not diapers.
Some people here still say trousers, but mostly it is pants.

One thing Helen wrote was 'The car does not wear clothes, it has no boot or bonnet.' I wonder what they do have? We call the back of the car the boot, and being totally not into cars I have no idea what we call the front bit ...