Pronounciations are another thing that is interesting.  Oregano in Australia is pronounced as oh-reh-gar-no with a short 'o' and a long 'a', in the US it's or-eg-ah-no with a long 'o' and a short 'a', but it's spelled the same.  American regular beer is not far off the same strength as Aussie light beer.  Aussies say softdrink, in the US it's soda.

American's wear thongs on their butts, Aussies wear them on their feet.  American's drive on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car.  In the US, Christmas is in winter, in Australia it's in Summer.  In the US, jam is jelly and jelly is gello.  The US still uses the imperial system of measurement, Aussies use metric.  The US is a day behind us on the time line, and when it's day here it's night there.

And they think us Aussies are backwards and behind the times!!!  hehe! 

Yep, Chrissy (Christmas) here is in summer.  Most fair dinkum (genuine and true) aussies 'ave (have) a barbie (barbeque) or cold meats and seafood lunch - prawns (shrimps), crays (crayfish) and yabbies (a type of freshwater crayfish) are grouse (good) and go down well (are popular) - with a piss-up (party) of cold booze / piss (beer) and plonk (wines, ports, etc), topped off with a dip (swim) at the beach or pool in your cozzies (swimwear), or a water fight and a slip'n'slide (backyard water slide), or anything else to keep cool.  A few hours of beach cricket or backyard cricket for those that can take the heat is a must.  Yep, it gets very hot here - though it snowed in Melbourne on Chrissy day just gone which was a stunner (to everyone's shock and surprise).

Santa wears thongs (footwear also known as flipflops in other countries), red stubbies (shorts) and tanktop (singlet), but his hat is the same.  He does away with the reindeer and instead hooks up the sleigh with 6 white boomers (Red - species name - Kangaroos). There's even a song about it.  At chrissy time, Jacaranda trees loose their leaves and are in full bloom, so we have bright purple trees at chrissy (there's a song about that as well) and we awake to the sounds of bird calls all over the nation (there's a song about that too).

What you call flipflops (footwear) we call thongs and Kiwi's (New Zealanders) call them jandles.

Someone that is overweight might be refered to as a heffer, lard @rse (we say @rse instead of @ss), but there are not a lot of fair dinkum (true and genuine) ocker (specific aussie slang) for being overweight.

Other terms:

'avin (having) a roo (kangaroo) loose in the top paddock, or being a tinny (can) short of a six pack (specifically a six-pack of beer), both are phrases for not being totally with the program, a bit air-headed, slightly crazy, etc.  A galah is a silly person.  A drongo is someone who is generally stupid.

A wowser is any bloke (man) or sheila (woman) who is uptight, has no sense of humour, and is constantly trying to spoil the fun of the larikins - who are funny and harmless fun-loving practical jokers, because yobbos -also known as w#nkers with an 'a' (people with no respect for the status quo and other people) - want to be like the larikins but don't know how and they do it all the wrong way, and they end up pissing off (upsetting) the wowsers in the process, and then the wowsers whinge (complain) to get everything banned (made illegal) so the larikins can't do it anymore and the yobbos get away with it scott free (without punishment).  This inevitably leads to the larikins and yobbos 'avin a blue (fight) about it, where the true blue (genunie) bruisers (good fighters/tougher people) tend to do a lot of damage, after which they all end up going to the pub (public bar) and 'avin a night on the piss (booze/alcohol) until they are totally pissed (drunk) as a parrot.  During which they all tell the wowsers to piss off (go away).  When they need to, they go to the dunny (toilet) to spend a penny / take a slash / squirt the dirt / point percy at the porcelain / 'ave a piss / shake the snake or any one of hunderds of other terms for the urinary aspect of going to the toilet.  At stumps (the end of the night) everyone gets the booze bus (any responsible transport that is driven by a sober person) back to their shack (house) to the missus / trouble and strife (wife or female partner) or their fella / old man (male partner or husband - note: old man is also a term for father depending on who's saying it and in what context) before they get into strife (trouble).  They find a swag (pillow and blanket) and crash (go to sleep) - if they can hit the sack (go to bed) in a reasonable state they might decide to bypass the hair of the dog (having a beer upon waking up in the morning in a vain attempt to get rid of the hangover) and not end up in the dog house (being in trouble) with the other half (their partner).

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!  I've just burned my brain out!  It's been a long time since I've spoken ocker.  I'll get into this more another time.

See ya later mate.

ha!  My computer is playing up, this came out twice!  Go figure?

Oh, almost forgot, we write the date as day-month-year, Americans write it as month-day-year.  So here for us it's now 18-01-07, over there it is 01-17-07.  Yes, I did that right because you're a day behind as I write this.

wait got another one ciggie smoke durry or dart are other names for cigarette....

oh and dick togs...

mens swimwear you know the ones that look like a pair of jocks (undies) they look feral (gross) on old men...

Fair go simply means to give a fair chance, an equal opportunity, or to ease up or back off a little bit.

Another related phrase is 'fair crack of the whip', which is the the same thing, but takes away some of the personal emphasis.

We stand in line, or line up - in queues.

Spelling of many words is different, such as colour and honour, and the Florida Keys over here would be spelled as the Florida Quays.  We spell jail as gaol.  A meter is a measuring device and a metre is a measurement.  And it's litre, not liter.  Center is the middle of something, a centre is a place such as a shopping centre or entertainment centre.  There are dozens, if not hundreds, of these anomalies.