One of the interesting things about Japanese lessons is learning new things about my own language. Here's somethign I learned last week.
In Japanese, each sort of sugar-based sweet treat has its own name: chocolate is チョコ (choco) ; old fashioned hard candies are 飴 (ame); soft chewy sweets are カンディー (candy) and so on through jelly beans, caramels and gum...each one is its own thing and there's no general category into which they all fit except the very broad category of "snacks"
So I figured that "candy" as a category was an English language thing. But I am wrong. It's an American English thing. In Australia, candy is chewy gummy things just like in Japan, and each sweet stands on its own. I don't know about the Queen's English. Is there a general category for all sugar-based treats in the UK?
Isn't okashi a word for all sweets in Japanese? I don't know.. I thought so, but my Japanese-knowledge is still very basic, so I might be wrong..
Okashi covers things like senbei, mochi-based sweets, and gelatins (like anin-dofu). So it is a category for sweet things, but not specifically sugar-dense sweets that we'd lump together as 'candy' in the US.
The situation in the UK is much as Australia, except that the word candy is fairly archaic (or seen as an Americanised affectation). Word forms like 'candied fruit' are rarely seen, much like the referent :)
"Sweets" in the UK
Candy - I have never really used that word in Australia.
LOLLIES (sorry UltraBob) are the word I would use for gummy bears, jelly babies, strawberries and creams, chicos, teeth, milk bottles, snakes etc. But lollies are also used for caramel buds, bullets, cobbers, chocolate buds, clinkers and (for the Adelaidians) Fruit Chus.
I really want a $1 bag of mixed lollies now - especially if they come in a white paper bag with the corners rolled down. I wonder how big a $1 bag would be these days???
We say Fairy Floss for Cotton Candy.
We say Toffee Apples for Candied Apples.
I concurr with T. Candy was almost never used in Western Australia ... except maybe in the context of hard candy. I think some manufacturers use it in their product names now so it is probably entering the vocabulary.
I can remember going to the sweet shop to buy lollies when I was younger.
I have a bunch of Aussie lollies ready for a party sometime soon.
Twisties and Mars bars, too...
I had intended to write "lollies" instead of candy about Australia, but candy is so hard-coded into my brain I typed candy instead. I know it's lollies there, honest!
Dammit T it's Fruit CHOCS you banana bender.
On the subject, in the UK we call cookies biscuits and cookies refers to only a certain type of biscuit. That with chocolate chips!