Both in New Zealand and in Australia the names of the days, also holiday, and yesterday are given the full sound of -day instead of the standard English Mondi, etc. This is not a relic of traditional usage, like the sharp wh-, but a pedantic following of the spelling. Asia, Persia, version are given the flat zh sound, Azhia, verzhion, etc. This, though it does occur in Scotland, is rather an Americanism as used in New Zealand.

In sporting language (hardly at all elsewhere) in New Zealand and Australia may is often used for might. The commentator will say that “the fieldsman may have stopped the ball before it reached the boundary”, meaning that he might have stopped it but did not…. The word basic is frequently bassic with a short a in both countries and this pronunciation seems to be confined to Australasia.