Sami Muirhead: let's talk about bogans, beers, bathers... and potato cakes

There was even more shocking news this week than the fact Donald Trump is running again for President of the United States.

The hot (potato) debate dividing our nation was the preferred name of the great deep fried golden circle of goodness: the potato scallop versus the potato cake!

Aussies love the humble potato and 87% of our households purchase on average 1.7 kilograms of potatoes every shopping trip. That is a lot of spuds.

But let’s get into the nitty gritty of this great potato debate.

New South Welshmen and Queenslanders call the golden fried delight (the correct title in my opinion) the potato scallop, whereas Victorians are adamant there’s no other name for it than a potato cake.

A cake? No! Absolutely not!  A cake has cream or icing or candles on top.

We do not have cake with potato in the middle because we are not monsters.

Technically, it could actually be a potato patty, the same as a salmon or meat patty, as it is a slice of vegetable.

Travel this wide brown land of ours and you will quickly find yourself in a state of confusion when it comes to our language for the important life choices such as ordering a beer.

In NSW, the ACT, Queensland, Victoria, WA, the NT and Tasmania, order a schooner and you will get a big 425ml glass.  But order the same thing in SA and you will be disappointed when you receive a tiny 285ml glass.

You may want to ask for a pint, which in SA is actually the same size as a schooner.

Then, of course, others have the middy if you are after a smaller drink but here, we call it a pot.  Confused? Me too!

We have devon on our sandwiches as a sausage-type meat in the sunshine state, but elsewhere in Australia they call it luncheon or polony baloney or Fritz.  What a load of baloney indeed.

What’s the difference between a dagwood dog, a dippy dog and a pluto pup? Nothing at all.  Just the name.

And if you are going swimming in Queensland we wear our togs.  Other states call them scungies, budgie smugglers, bathers or cossies.

But the biggest one of all is the name we reserve for bogans, whereas others in the nation say bevans, westies, and boonies.

So, I leave you with the correct choice of words to create a grammatically correct sentence:

The bogan wore his togs to the corner store to buy his potato scallop and dagwood dog and wash it down with a pot of Fourex Gold.

Cheers to that!

Sami Muirhead is a radio announcer, blogger and commentator. For more from Sami, tune into Mix FM.