We are officially more cultured than all those city folk.

Forget what Melbourne people say - we are compromising people with sophisticated language skills.

How do I know this?

Because we use the words bubble taps.

Give yourselves a pat on the back.

If you're reading this with a blank look on your face, relax.

A bubble tap is another name for bubblers - which is what they call them in NSW, ACT and the Northern Territory.

Still unsure?

In Queensland, Western Australia and Tassie, they call them drinking fountains.

And in our capital city, they refer to them plainly as 'the taps'.

But we regional Victorians are clever.

We showed linguistic compromise and cultural insight and came up with the term bubble tap.

Genius.

The Macquarie Dictionary has released an Australian Word Map, which created quite a bit of banter in our office.

My friend and colleague Erin thought she had become pretty 'country' since moving to the Wimmera from Melbourne a few years ago.

But soon the differences in our language were glaringly obvious.

She didn't understand why I started laughing about her wearing bloomers under her netball skirt, any more than I could understand why you would refer to briefs as bloomers.

A few years ago when photographer Sam Camarri and I moved in together, I was constantly baffled when she referred to her love of Poppers.

She meant fruit boxes.

Erin calls them Primas.

Living with Queenslander Camarri was an eye-opening experience.

She called the canteen a tuckshop.

We would order tea and she'd ask if I wanted a potato scallop. No, but I'd love a potato cake or two, I'd say.

We figured that one out eventually.

I asked about a greylead and she wondered why I specified the colour of the lead pencil.

The Macquarie list taught me more.

Apparently not all teachers go on yard duty - some go on 'playground duty'.

Sporting fans, clutch your best and fairest medals dearly - sometimes they're not called that.

In northern and central Western Australia, they say fairest and best.

The wheely bin is a 'sulo bin' in Sydney, the Hunter Valley and Perth. It's also known as an otto.

Not everyone says peanut butter, as it turns out (peanut paste?), not everyone has play lunch in primary school, and the nature strip might be something different depending on what state you're in.

Not everyone knows what a 'slide' is.

Perhaps a more common 'regionalism' is the term for swimwear.

We're from the Wimmera and Mallee, we say bathers - the Macquarie says so!

Western Australians and South Australians also say the right term.

But elsewhere, they're given a range of names - togs, swimsuits, swimmers.

In Sydney they call them cossies, as anyone who's ever read a summer edition of Dolly, Cleo or Cosmo could tell you.

But I digress.

Unsurprisingly, the term 'steak florrie' only appears to be used in one area in all of Australia.

Makes sense - they were invented here after all.

There was one 'Wimmera and Mallee' expression I didn't recognise: "Drop my strides in Langlands' window".

I'm from Horsham, I've heard of Langlands, so I had a look.

The definition?

"Should an outcome happen that the speaker believes is most unlikely, the speaker undertakes to lower his trousers to passers' view in the window of the main street department store of Langlands, Firebrace Street, Horsham, Vic - now closed as a single emporium.

"It means the speaker is strongly betting that the outcome will not, er, come out: 'Look mate, if Bolte gets beaten I'll drop my strides in Langlands' window'."

One contributor remembered the statement from the 1970s - well before my time.

I'll drop my strides in Langlands' window if that one catches on again.