[quote]what words have you found to be purely local? [quote]
When I first read this post, dozens of examples came to mind, but I discounted almost all of them as they were Maori words that have become part of standard NZ English, and I'm not sure that you had that sort of regionalism in mind. One that may fit is "clayton's" meaning "ersatz," or "sham." In the late 70s there was a drink marketed here called Clayton's, the slogan for which was "The drink you have, when you're not having a drink." It was inended as a substitute for alcoholic cocktails, but never caught on, and faded away quickly. The name however stuck, and one of the most common uses of it today woiuld be in the phrase "A clayton's solution" - often used to describe political policies. The phrase seems to be fairly specific to Australia and NZ, as a quick search at Google reveals several uses of the word "clayton's" in this manner, and all sites that do are from the .au domain.
