Regarding what Carol says above, in reply to Janet, we also have to take into account that usages change over time, and when this happens in another country we may be unaware of it. I remember the expression Carol mentions, "a good screw" in Dublin when I was a kid and it meant then exactly what it did in James Joyce's story "The Boarding House" - a well-paid job, but by the early nineteen sixties, if not earlier, nobody would have used it this way for obvious reasons.
I don't think the issue of local usage need cause us too much anxiety, or no more than any other issue of word choice does, and most of us write, perhaps, with more local audiences in mind, even though we may subject our work to the more widely based scrutiny of Eratosphere. I agree, though, that strident objections to a word or phrase because the critic hasn't heard it used in his own back yard should not be taken too seriously.
I also think that coming on local words, expressions and idioms are one of the delights of reading.
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