I know this is a late ninja response, but I've had a reason to revisit LJs blog entries :)
A regional SA term that I imagine creates quizzical looks in the rest of the country is 'stobie poles' - the name given to the concrete and steel girder electricity poles which have a bad habit of surviving better than cars do when they crash into them. Like other brand names standing in for generics, SA peeps will call all electrical and lamp poles this, regardless of their composition.
There's a good explanation of why they were built and named here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stobie_pole, but this is the type of useless trivia I just know, having grown up in an ETSA family.
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Date: Fri, Feb. 22nd, 2013 11:53 am (UTC)A regional SA term that I imagine creates quizzical looks in the rest of the country is 'stobie poles' - the name given to the concrete and steel girder electricity poles which have a bad habit of surviving better than cars do when they crash into them. Like other brand names standing in for generics, SA peeps will call all electrical and lamp poles this, regardless of their composition.
There's a good explanation of why they were built and named here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stobie_pole, but this is the type of useless trivia I just know, having grown up in an ETSA family.