It’s the kind of question to prompt knitted brows, and the answers are just a bit woolly.
Civis fears the creeping invasion of the United States and Canadian sweater, although internet searching suggested jersey is holding its own in New Zealand. For Civis, jersey remains the go-to.
Pullover is said to be a globally recognised term, especially common in European fashion.
Jumper sounds more British, and it’s a term Civis thought was losing its bounce in New Zealand, until The Warehouse site was checked.
There, 14 different men’s "jumpers" were displayed — and not a single jersey in sight. There are also plenty of women’s "jumpers", plus a handful of sweatshirts.
It being July, let’s not sweat over that last term, or over hoodies, for that matter.
The blog identified jumper as the standard word in the United Kingdom and Ireland, evoking cosy knitwear for cooler seasons. Disconcertingly, jumper was also listed as the primary word for Australia and New Zealand.
Adding to the confusion: in American English, a "jumper" is a sleeveless dress worn over a blouse. Civis had no idea.
Jersey is thought to originate from Jersey in the Channel Islands. Jersey was renowned for high-quality knitted wool garments, and the name became associated first with the fabric, then with the garments themselves.
In the 19th century, woollen jerseys were a natural choice for sport. The word "jersey" soon shifted to describe the entire garment.
Regulations at the 1908 London Olympics even required competitors to wear a "sleeved jersey". Thus, jersey embedded itself in the sporting lexicon.
Today, the leader of the Tour de France wears the yellow jersey. The All Blacks "play for the jersey", even if it’s made from some fancy synthetic material.
The garment called a guernsey emerged from another Channel Island, Guernsey. It was a tightly knitted, rugged top worn by fishermen, later adopted by the British Navy. Guernsey is now often considered a particular style of woollen jersey.
In the 1870s, Australian rules footballers began wearing guernseys — robust, navy woollen tops. These evolved into today’s sleeveless AFL guernseys.
The Collins Dictionary notes that jersey, as a knitted upper-body garment, is "old-fashioned". How dare it!
★★★
Language acquisition and the integration of grammar rules into mother tongues are fascinating.
Pre-schoolers, through repetition, begin to understand that "-ed" turns verbs into the past tense. That works fine for climb/climbed and kick/kicked. But English is riddled with irregular verbs, so you’ll often hear little ones say eated, sleeped or fighted.
Or perhaps even "I runned so fast my shoes flyed off".
However, what really caught Civis’ ear was a girl of nearly 3 using both forms together: she not just "seed" something — she "sawed" it.
And what about this gem from a pre-teen? She’s just learned that the small pieces in chess are called pawns and not prawns.
