. Vocabulary and idiom

English reveals a rich variety of vocabulary and idiom, ranging from discourse about landscape, political and social institutions, cultural events, sports and so on, to colloquial expressions.

Some of the lexical variations are of course related to — although rarely fully - to government. Thus Australia has one Prime Minister, but each of the states of Australia - New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and so on — has its own Premier. The United Kingdom has a Prime Minister but the country is not politically organized as a federation. Hence in Britain 'Premier' is virtually a synonym of 'Prime Minister' and is often used in the newspapers to refer to the 'prime ministers' of countries other than Britain. The United States of America has neither Prime Minister nor Premiers (although the words are used to refer to the leaders of other countries) but has its own institutional roles, including 'President' (of the USA) and 'Governor' (of a State).

Similarly, physical differences among the English-speaking countries, and differences in the way that land has been settled and used, may be reflected in different vocabulary and different ways of using that vocabulary. The word 'prairie', for example, refers to the large, relatively flat expanses of grassy land found in parts of North America. Britain simply does not have such terrain. Australia does have some large plains, but they are mostly dry and not thickly covered in grass, and they are not referred to as 'prairies'. On the other hand, a 'moor' is an area of higher ground, with poor soil covered with grass or heather or other low vegetation, which is a feature of some parts of Britain. Comparable terrain in other countries is usually not defined or identified in the same way. The word 'stream' is relatively common in Britain to describe a small river, but rare in this sense outside Britain. In Australia and North America, small rivers are often called 'creeks', a word which in Britain refers to relatively long and narrow inlets from the sea. The reason why is used in this different way may be that when English-speakers first began to map Australia and North America they approached from the sea. What at first seemed an inlet of the ocean might be called a 'creek'; when the inlet later proved to be the mouth of a small river, the term 'creek' was easily extended to the river itself.

The word 'bush' has come to be used in Australia and New Zealand (as well as in parts of Africa) to mean the more sparsely settled parts of the country, away from the large cities, somewhat as British people speak of the 'country'or 'countryside'. But of course the Australian bush is far larger, less cultivated and less populated than the British countryside and a number of expressions.

A contrast between two radical alternatives, or a choice between everything and nothing, maybe referred toas 'Sydney orthe bush'; or 'bush' is used as a verb, in passive structures, as in 'we were bushed', meaning initially 'we were totally lost (in the bush)' but now more commonly 'we were totally exhausted'.

In some cases there is no longer any obvious reason why words and idioms are localized. The word 'fortnight' is common in Britain and Australia, meaning 'two weeks' but rare in the USA. The word 'highway' was once common in Britain, but is no longer the usual term for a main road, although it survives in common usage outside Britain — and indeed the word is likely to strike the British as an 'Americanism', even though the word is common in other countries as well, such as Australia.

Many of the colloquial expressions used to refer to people, to describe people's moods, to greet friends and so on are local: some are quite short-lived; some survive long periods; some remain local in flavour; some spread to other countries. The word 'bloke', for example, is a colloquialism for a man (as in 'I saw this bloke in the car park'). It is widely used in informal speech, in Australia, Britain and New Zealand in particular and there is evidence that the word has been around for at least 150 years. By contrast, the word 'sheila' is an equally colloquial term for a woman or girl (as in 'there were a couple of sheilas coming out of the cafu') but the word has a peculiarly Australian flavour. It is actually not very common in modern Australian speech and, when it is used, may be humorous or self-conscious, but the word is nevertheless known outside Australia as an Australianism and tends to be quoted as an example rather more than its usage deserves.

Illustrating colloquialisms further from words to do with anger and stupidity, Australians have used the word 'ropable' to mean 'angry' or 'bad-tempered' (as of a bull needing to be roped) but the word is unlikely to be heard nowadays except from older Australians. The word 'crook' meaning 'angry' in expressions like 'he went crook at me'(he got very angry with me) is also a typical Australian usage, but again probably becoming rarer among younger speakers. The word 'mad', in a similar sense of 'angry' rather than 'crazy', was once regarded as American usage, but has now become quite common around the English-speaking world.

Among greetings, the informal 'hello' and 'hi 'are common around the world, as are the more formal 'good morning' and 'good afternoon'. 'Good day' is old-fashioned in most of the English-speaking world, but does have a colloquial use in Australia, often abbreviated to 'g'day', although it is probably becoming rare in city speech. In Britain the question 'how are you?' following an initial greeting, is an enquiry about someone's health or condition, but it is conventional to reply positively ('Very well, thanks!' or 4'mfme, how are you ?', for example) rather than to take the question too seriously and to give details of one's backache or incipient influenza. In Australia, however, the question may be used as a greeting, even to strangers, often without real expectation of any reply at all.

Of course not all local expressions are mysterious to other speakers of English. Some words have been shared by some countries for many years, like 'lollies' (sweets, candies) and 'wharfie' (docker, waterside worker), which are in use in both Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, the international circulation of films, television programmes, magazines and books, means that English speakers are increasingly exposed to a variety of expression. Most of the English-speaking world sees American films and television programmes; many British television programmes are shown in Australia and New Zealand; in recent years Australian television programmes have become popular in Britain; and so on. Of course the forces are not equally balanced: Australians living in Sydney have relatively little knowledge of Canada and Canadian English, are more familiar with New Zealand English but scarcely influenced by it, and are much more aware of British and American English. Canadians are very aware of the USA as their powerful southern neighbour, whereas Canada looms nowhere near as large in the consciousness of the USA. But being aware of other usage does not necessarily mean imitating it. Australians who regularly watch American films may gain a good knowledge of American idiom and may mimic it from time to time without regularly using all the expressions they come to understand. For some Canadians, familiarity with American usage may be a strong motive to resist the American model and to assert their Canadianness.

We must also recognize that some of the vocabulary of English indigenous languages of Australia, but they are not really Australianisms. A boomerang in a museum in New York or Edinburgh is still a boomerang; an argument can 'boomerang' in London or Auckland as well as in Melbourne or Alice Springs; and a Canadian or New Zealander who describes something as 'shaped like a boomerang' is not thereby talking Australian English. The same applies to most of the words for flora, fauna and artefacts which have come into English from indigenous languages in Canada, New Zealand and the USA. Words like 'moose, toboggan, kiwi (the bird and the fruit), hickory, skunk, moccasin, totem'', for example, can all be considered international English, despite their origin in one particular country.

As we noted above at the end of the section on grammar, formal written English of the kind found in scientific journals and academic textbooks does not vary radically, whether in its grammar or vocabulary. Much of the regional variation in vocabulary and idiom is colloquial and some of it rarely finds its way into writing or print. There are other differences, such as the political and geographic terms illustrated at the beginning of this unit, but these remain a relatively small proportion of the total resources of English.