OT: City Names - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

20 Apr 1999

...
   Well I was at
an American run management course last year in Newcastle. One
 of the (male) attendees made the comment that he was cold and that he was
 going to get a jumper. This caused a hysterical reaction by one of the
 female presenters - apparently from her part of the USA a jumper is a dress! 
 Farzino, a "jumper" is a dress anywhere in the US, specifically a
 dress of a style rarely worn once puberty kicks in.  Possibly the
 standardisation of that nomenclature resulted from the fact that
 that's what was used in the old Sears-Roebuck catalogs that were
 distributed nationwide. 

That sounds like what I would call a "pinnafore dress".  In the UK a Jumper is
usually a sweater.  The only exception I have met was in the _Manual of
Seamanship_, published by the Admiralty in (I think) 1938, where it lists the
kit issued to sailors, with illustrations.  There the sweater is called a
"Jersey", and "Jumper" refers to something resembling a football
shirt.  Well,
the top half of a sailor suit anyway :-)

Philip.