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by thih9 845 days ago
I found none of these in the pdf linked elsewhere[1]. But perhps these are less formal, sort of mcmurdo’s urbandictionary?

[1]: https://monoskop.org/images/8/8b/Hince_Bernadette_Antarctic_...

1 comments

These are very US-centric, though I've not been to other countries' stations so there's probably some crossover. In two winters I've never heard anyone use fry/fried - toast/toasty is used at Pole. I imagine it's a similar set of vocabulary to within the military, especially as a lot of the naming conventions are holdovers from the Navy (e.g. we eat in the galley) and there are workplace-specific acronyms. Ice/being on ice is internationally ubiquitous though.

Also as a non-American it's quite hard to judge if there's a change in accent. We have people summering/wintering from across the country so it's a melting pot of pronunciation to start with. I think you'd be able to make a better observation from one of the bases with a much smaller population of neutral-accented people.

Skua (bin) is in that dictionary though, and that's still widely used in the US. As is toast(ed). Interestingly ice widow is referenced, though I've never heard that used.