Funny how, even with an AWAD inspired understanding of cross-pond conversation, I can still get caught out.

Yesterday a vowel-state friend was helping make a children's costume. I mentioned an apron that she'd made out of the calico I'd bought a few days ago. "No", she said, "it's not calico, it's muslin". "No", I said, it is definitely calico, muslin is much thinner, you can use it in the kitchen to strain liquids. "No", that's muslin too but this is thick muslin ..." she continued. "No, this is definitely calico", I said, "I even discussed it in the shop and asked for it by name".

After a little while, we stopped saying "muslin", "calico" with occasional harrumphs (courtesy of AnnaS). When she pointed out that calico was usually patterned, I realised that this was not a simple misunderstanding but one of those Brit/US'n thangs.

Here, as far as I know, calico is plain cheap cotton, sometimes unbleached, never patterned. Muslin is only used for the thinnest cloth, ideal for putting over the shoulder when carrying babies around. You would not be able to make sheets or curtains out of muslin. It can be used for straining cheese but cheesecloth is a little rougher - I remember the cheesecloth blouses of the seventies - they never quite buttoned up again after a couple of washes.

It appears that in the USA, Calico is patterned cloth and the word muslin is used for a much wider range of fabrics. This means that all those little girls that I read about in my youth, didn't prance around in plain unbleached cotton dresses I'd always wondered why they wore them, such a lot of washing! but had cotton dresses with patterns. Similarly, I've heard mention of a calico cat but never really thought about it what it might look like, the word "colourful" would have been a long way from my thoughts.

If you look up the word in a selection of dictionaries (try onelook.com) - you'll get the different definitions.

The next question is since the name comes from Calicut and the fabric was exported by the East India company, how did two such different uses emerge?

What do people from other counties mean when they say calico?