This whole To-mah-to thing...

When the word came out of my mouth unconsciously, I was mildly horrified. I know that I'm picking up little snippets of Aussie speak, and I'm such an accidental mimic I'm sure by the time I get back to the states, I'll just sound silly and pretentious. Let me say in advance...it is not on purpose! It's just easier to adapt rather than have people give you that blank stare. Tomato vs. tomahto...ladies room vs. toilet...tomahto sauce vs. ketchup....hotel vs. bar...the list goes on. I have an Aussie slang dictionary book marked on my internets because there are just that many variations. I am starting to call hoodlums bogans and hoons even. A mugging is a bashing. A bell pepper is a capsicum. Fries are chips. Cookies are biscuits. A rib eye is a scotch fillet (pronounced fill-it). And mayo is some unmentionable substance that's not quite Miracle Whip but certainly not mayo. Unless you spring for the imported Hellmans, which I do. And....a burger is anything that comes between two halves of a bun. Which brings us back to tomahto. I was ordering a bacon burger, without tomahto, and forgot that vital bit of burger detail. So my order arrived and rather than being the tasty bacon burger I'd imagined with grilled onions and lettuce and an all meat patty with some crispy bacon, it was a bunch of moderately limp Aussie bacon (like Canadian bacon but with fat) with a fried egg and lettuce. Turns out of all the 5-6 'burgers' listed on the menu, not one actually contained a patty of ground beef. I was bummed.