Language Barriers

Ok -- so you can enjoy in my confusion... here is another interesting thing I experienced just today.

"Arvo"

I saw a note that said " Will return this arvo..." and I thought I was misreading the note, or possibly the letters I was seeing weren't real. This moment of confusion and wonderment actually made me ask my in-laws what in the heck was an "Arvo".

So here I stealed myself to ask, got up the gumption to say something to Jill and very innocently said "Um, this may sound stupid, but what is an arvo?" To which she giggled quietly and said, "arvo is a very Australian word... it means afternoon." Then she turns to Alan (who as of yet hadn't heard my question) and said, "Alan, Gen want's to know what an arvo is." And of course he also chuckled and said, "afternoon of course".

Here I am learning a whole new language, and I thought we all spoke English, silly me.

FYI - with a quick search online you can find the history and definition of "arvo".
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ar⋅vo /ˈɑrvoʊ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ahr-voh]

–noun Australian Slang.

afternoon.

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Origin:
1930–35; af(ternoon) + -o, with voicing of -f-; ar is r-less speaker's representation of low back vowel

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

Sultana -- Food or Foe?

There are some things in the Aussie vocabulary that still make me double take and think about what I just heard. One such word is "sultana". So, here I am in the Yogurt Shoppe looking at different flavors of freshly made yogurt with fruit toppings and one of the signs reads, "Apples, Sultanas and Cinnamon". I am staring at the concoction in the refrigerated case trying to figure out what exactly are sultanas. In the midst of my confusion I quietly ask my mother-in-law and she explains that they are dried grapes. I thought how silly to have a name that means nothing like dried grape, and then I remembered that in the USA we call them raisins or currents - two more names that have nothing apparent to do with grapes. Out of my curiosity I looked it up (good 'ole wikipedia)...

Sultana (grape)
The sultana (also called the sultanina or sultaninini) is a type of white, seedless grape of Turkish, Greek or Iranian origin. It is also the name given to the raisin made from it; such sultana raisins are often called simply sultanas or sultanis. These are typically larger than the currants made from Zante grapes, but smaller than "normal" raisins.