The Wrong Thong Posted Sun, 24 Apr 2005

Last night, I accidentally left my thong in someone else's hotel room.

Because I suspect there might be ambiguity in the minds of some my non-Australian readers, this is what I forgot:

/copyrighteous/images/havaianas.png

Even with full knowledge of the Australian definition, it's sometimes difficult for me to talk about my thongs by name. I've been told that I can also call them "pluggers." I'm not sure that this is really all that much better.

Permalink | reflections | View/Add Comments: 11

Responses to This Post

Thongs be the correct name!
Posted by Alan Harper at Sun Apr 24 22:52:32 2005
Uh... "pluggers"? Not to this Australian. I'd imagine that you were talking about some weird... something. Something to do with plugs.

Ah. The Australian regionalism map says it's a Queensland thing: http://web.macquariedictionary.com.au/wordmap/result_word.htm?sessionname=mapFFA49453105
Posted by Mary at Sun Apr 24 22:54:47 2005
We English call them flip-flops, for obvious reasons. "Thong," sounds better.
Posted by ffub at Sun Apr 24 22:55:29 2005
Havaianas! :-)

It's called "sandália" (sandal, this is how we call it here in Brazil). "Sandálias Havaianas".
And it's good to see that a product of Brazil is famous! :-D
Posted by Nelson A. de Oliveira at Sun Apr 24 23:26:29 2005
Honestly I thought you really meant a thong (which in America is a skimpy undergarment in place of underwear usually). It is unheard of (most of the time) for men to wear thongs...

So naturally when I read that you left your thong in a room... I was a little confused.

We call them "Flip-flops" here. I think it's a really silly name. We distinguish them from sandals (which have straps).
Posted by Martin Grondin at Mon Apr 25 00:34:34 2005
We down here in the enlightened land of NZ :P call them "Jandals".
Posted by Matt Brown at Mon Apr 25 02:37:05 2005
a hint of how things could go horribly wrong in translation- footwear being confused for skimpy undergarments by future civilization archaeologists, interesting

Afrikaans speakers call them "Plakkies" (plah-keys) in the RSA
Posted by shodan at Mon Apr 25 05:46:31 2005
Besides "Sandálias Havaianas", which translates to Havaina Sandals, they also have another common name, which is actually its real name, since we can't call flip-flops real sandals. The name is "Chinelo(s)" -- the S por plural). You pick the name of your choosing.
Posted by Fabinho at Mon Apr 25 06:55:15 2005
I suppose you could call them flip-flops, but some ignorant people might think you're talking about Kerry.
Posted by Ari Pollak at Mon Apr 25 20:52:31 2005
it's called "havaianas" in brazil, where those are made. translating to english, it would mean "hawaiians". it costs about 4 usd here.. maybe i cand send you another one. which color would you like? :)
Posted by Lu at Tue Apr 26 01:31:31 2005
Ok, so this is very late, but just reading old blogs now. 

If you're truly stylish, you buy double plugger thongs, whereas those ones just looked like single pluggers. :-)
Posted by Sarah at Wed May 11 06:48:42 2005

Leave Your Own Comment