Re: muzzies

Heather Rice wrote:
>
> To anyone who knows anything about English dialects.
>
> I was at an ladies expat brunch one day, and we were
> talking about weather and aircon and things of that
> sort, and one lady (from England, somewhere near
> London I believe, who had lived in Saudi Arabia for
> some years) started talking about how the "muzzies"
> get into the houses through the cracks in the windows.
>  Well, I didn't know what "muzzies" were, so I asked
> and found out that they were mosquitoes.  Now, I
> thought it was interesting that the lady from Scotland
> sitting beside me didn't know what "muzzies" were
> either.  Is this 1.  An affectionate term for
> mosquitoes that only English people in Saudi Arabia
> use or 2.  a term belonging to only a certain dialect
> of England or 3.  Just a word that this one lady
> happened to know but we didn't?
>
> Where ever it came from, I kinda like the word.
>
> Heather
>
As a child living in Leicester I remember hearing the word 'mozzie' used
to refer to any small flying insect. Since moving about 30 miles further
north I have never heard it.

Steve