Fancy a trip to the dairy?

11 terms from other English dialects that you might not know

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The term dialect is sometimes perceived as negative or derogatory when it is merely descriptive: It’s a particular form of a language tied to a certain region or a particular group of people, and can be understood by users of the same language, even if they speak a different dialect.

The English language has a multitude of dialects, all with unique traits, but all mutually intelligible… sometimes. While English speakers around the world can understand each other no matter their origin, certain words greatly differ from standard American English. Keep on reading so you can recognize these terms in future conversations.

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The Canadian dollar is the official currency of The Great White North, and loonie is the name given to the one-dollar coin. The name originated from the fact that most coins have the image of a common loon, a bird found throughout most of the Canadian territory. The term loonie is so widespread that the Canadian Royal Mint has secured the rights to it. When the two-dollar coin was introduced in the 90s, it was aptly nicknamed toonie, as in two loonies.

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Being tall is generally considered an attractive feature, but this is not what Nigerians are talking about when they call you long-leg. For them, someone with long-legs is someone well-connected who has an unfair advantage because of it, often being favored over those who really deserve the positions or recognitions.

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What would make you wag your chin for a long time? Obviously, a good chat! This is exactly what the English are referring to when they use the word chinwag, a long and pleasant conversation with friends. It is also used as a synonym for gossip, because we all know where those chit-chats are heading.

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Philippine English has an abundance of interesting terms, both derived from native languages and alternative uses of English words. High blood is an example of the latter: While it is used in a medical sense, it also means that someone is angry or agitated. If a Filipino tells you someone is ‘high blood’, it means this person has a short temper and is easily angered.

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Jamaican English is a colorful language, heavily marked by Patois —also called Patwa, an English-based creole with French, Spanish, and West African influences. The term pickney —from the Portuguese pequenino, very small— is commonly used to refer to a child. Fun fact: in Jamaican Patois, plurals are formed by adding the word ‘dem’, so children would be pickney dem.

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We challenge anyone to find a more Irish word than craic, they are not likely to succeed. Pronounced like ‘crack’, it is used in a multitude of ways, but it is mainly a descriptor of enjoyable times and experiences. Key phrases that use it are What's the craic? (What’s up?) and Any craic? (Any news or gossip?). Where does craic come from? In Middle English, crack meant ‘loud conversation’ or ‘news’.

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Many people fail to realize that, although Scottish people speak English on the regular, Scots is a language of its own, and many Scottish English words are of Scots origin. A good example is the term ken —to know, to be aware, to understand—, much more used than its English equivalents.

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If you hear a Kiwi person using the term dairy, you might think they are talking about milk products. You would be right about half of the time. While dairy is used in its standard sense, New Zealanders also use this word for a small convenience store where you can buy essential groceries, cigarettes, snacks, and yes, dairy products.

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Australia is known for being wild and interesting, and Australian English is no exception. The word bludger has a fascinating story: originally from the London slang ‘bludgeoner’ —someone who uses a stick to attack and rob—, it made its way to The Land Down Under, where it changed into bludger, someone who is lazy, avoids work and responsibilities, and relies on the efforts of others.

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Pick-up trucks (and trucks in general) are one of those things with a thousand names depending on the part of the world you find yourself in. For South Africans, it is a bakkie. From the Afrikaans bak, meaning ‘container’ or ‘bowl’, as a reference to the open cargo space in these vehicles.

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It is difficult to speak about Welsh English terms, not because they are not interesting (they are!), but because they might be difficult to pronounce for the average American (also, the amount of consonants commands respect). Our pick of the day is hanging —allegedly pronounced ‘angin’— used to express feeling sick, rough, and generally unwell, usually as a result of drinking and being hungover.

Heists and hustles: 10 infamous crimes that shocked the world

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People have always been drawn to stories of the impossible, and few tales spark more fascination than a daring heist. There’s something thrilling about the idea of guards, locks, and vaults being outwitted by clever minds with even stranger plans. Sometimes it’s a priceless masterpiece disappearing in broad daylight, other times it’s something as unexpected as maple syrup. From the ingenious to the downright bizarre, history is filled with thefts that sound more like adventure novels than real life. Let’s step into the shadows and explore some of the most astonishing heists ever carried out.

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Before she became the ultimate symbol of art itself, the Mona Lisa pulled off a vanishing act worthy of a magician. In 1911, a sneaky handyman slipped into the Louvre, spent the night hidden among the galleries, and the next morning walked out with Leonardo’s masterpiece tucked under his arm.

Paris was stunned. For two long years, all that remained was a blank space on the wall—and strangely enough, people flocked to the museum just to stare at the absence. When the painting finally resurfaced, the heist had transformed it from a celebrated portrait into a global icon, proving that sometimes disappearing from the public eye can make something even more valuable.

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In the heart of Antwerp’s diamond district in Belgium sat a vault so secure it was considered untouchable. Motion detectors, magnetic locks, heat sensors—every layer was designed like a fortress of light and steel. Yet in 2003, a band of thieves slipped past it all as if stepping through lace.

The robbers picked the locks with surgical precision, tricked cameras with clever decoys, and even masked their body heat to fool the sensors. By the time the heist was discovered, more than $100 million in diamonds and jewels had vanished into the night. What makes the story legendary is that most of the treasure has never resurfaced, leaving the world to wonder how the "heist of the century" was pulled off so cleanly.

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Picture this: a moonlit night in the quiet English countryside, the steady rhythm of a Royal Mail train echoing through the dark. Suddenly, the train screeches to a halt—robbers in masks have stopped it dead in its tracks. Inside, sacks stuffed with banknotes are waiting to be claimed. The gang managed to escape with £2.6 million—worth about £73.7 million today—, a sum that was never recovered.

Although they were captured a short time later, the audacity of the crime captured the world’s imagination, inspiring headlines, numerous books, and films. Even decades later, the Great Train Robbery of 1963 feels less like history and more like the plot of a thrilling adventure novel.

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High above the clouds, a mystery took flight. In 1971, a calm, neatly dressed passenger who gave the name D. B. Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant—he was hijacking the plane. His demands were unusual yet precise: $200,000 in small bills and four parachutes.

Once the ransom was delivered, the Boeing 727 lifted off again into a stormy night over the Pacific Northwest. Then came the moment that turned him into a legend: Cooper opened the rear stairway and leapt into the darkness, vanishing into the wind and rain. No trace of him—or the cash—was ever found. Decades later, his daring escape remains America’s favorite riddle in the sky.

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On a chilly March night in 1990, two men in police uniforms knocked politely on the side door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The guards, thinking it was routine business, let them inside. By the time the sun rose, the museum had been stripped of 13 masterpieces—including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas—worth an estimated half a billion dollars.

The strangest detail? The thieves left behind other valuable paintings, choosing their loot with puzzling precision. To this day, the crime remains unsolved, and the museum has kept the empty frames on the walls. Visitors still stop to stare, as if those blank outlines tell a story louder than the art itself: a mystery frozen in time.

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Legends linger long on island shores, and Bermuda has one that still stirs the imagination. In 1975, the Tucker’s Cross—a 22-karat gold cross set with brilliant emeralds—was stolen from a local museum. The artifact had been pulled from the depths of a centuries-old Spanish shipwreck, a jewel of history as much as of craftsmanship. Its disappearance was swift, its recovery nonexistent. Decades later, no trace has surfaced, ensuring the Tucker’s Cross remains one of the Caribbean’s most enduring unsolved mysteries.

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Who says a heist has to be about diamonds and cash? In Quebec, between 2011 and 2012, thieves quietly tapped into a warehouse and siphoned away nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup—that’s over 6 million pounds of the sticky stuff.

Valued at around $18 million, it became known as "liquid gold." The thought is almost comical: breakfast pancakes crowned with a topping more valuable than some gemstones. Even the sweetest prize can tempt the cleverest crooks!

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In 1950, an ordinary winter night turned remarkable when a band of thieves, their faces hidden behind cheap Halloween masks, slipped into the Brink’s armored car depot in Boston. Moving with military precision, they bound the guards and hauled away $2.7 million in cash, checks, and money orders—worth more than $30 million in today’s money.

For years, the trail stayed ice cold, and the job was praised as flawless. So perfect was the plan that investigators dubbed it the "crime of the century," and it set the benchmark for every heist that followed.

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December 1978, New York’s JFK Airport. What began as just another shift in the cargo terminal suddenly shifted into crime lore. A crew of thieves bypassed security and stormed the vault, vanishing with roughly $5 million in cash and close to $1 million in glittering jewels.

The sheer audacity—pulling off a multimillion-dollar heist in one of the busiest airports in the world—left Americans both shocked and fascinated. Decades later, the Lufthansa robbery still ranks among the boldest airport crimes in history.

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Imagine pulling off one of the biggest bank heists in California history—only to be spoiled by a pizza party. That’s exactly what happened in 1972, when a group of burglars spent weeks digging a tunnel into the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel. Their prize was staggering: about $9 million in cash, worth more than $60 million in today’s money.

For a moment, it looked like the perfect crime. But after the adrenaline wore off, the crew sat down to celebrate with pizza, leaving greasy fingerprints on the plates. Those smudges became the breadcrumbs that led investigators right to them, proving that sometimes the smallest slip can topple the grandest scheme.