Hmmm.... interesting. Maybe it's a case of potatoes and potatossundaymorningstaple wrote: You can be forgiven for thinking you appear to be pedantic. As you have never been in the military, the word may have had it's origins in S America, but the blade in question is a machete. The English language, as you well know, is a mismash of numerous languages and adopts words continually even till today.
http://www.gouldsoutdoors.co.uk/partnum ... nid=327972
Bout the only difference between that one and mine is mine dates from the early 60's before the British left Seletar Camp. How old it actually is I don't know.
What you link has a c. 10" blade. IME a machete has a c.18-20" blade, long enough to cut the base of sugar-cane without having to do it on hands and knees.
But I think in England too, they are likely to call something parang-like a 'machete', it seems it has morphed into one of those blanket terms.
p.s. Back in more innocent times, I came home from the Amazon with two machetes strapped to the outside of my back-pack. In fact several of our then expedition group did similar. Most of us were decked out in battered army greens. We must have looked rather like a paramilitary unit, on our way through Rio airport, but I don't recall anyone batting an eye