For the past couple of weeks I have been having a great time with my visiting American girlfriend. For the most part her vocabulary and idioms are easy to understand. A few examples to the contrary: She called a large cast iron casserole a "dutch oven". She asked if she should "take a transfer" on the bus which is something incomprehensible to do with return tickets. She said that the expensive face cream she bought was like "an orgasm on her face" by which she didn't mean it was warm and salty and stung like hell when it went in her eye. She described a favourable pairing as going together like "chocolate and peanut butter". Neither I nor anybody I know has ever eaten chocolate and peanut butter together. She might as well have said "penguins and lemonade" or "cement and lettuce".
None of this is as weird as the Australian dialect where apparently "don't wear thongs on the boat ramp" would mean "don't wear flip flops on the slipway".
Richard "separated by a common language" B
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