I know you guys use the word “mad” to mean “insane.” What does the word “crazy” mean to you? Do you use it often?
Here in Auckland, we use “crazy” to mean insane, more than we use “mad”.
Well, when we say “crazy”, we mean “insane”. And yeah, in my experience it’s pretty common.
I wish I had something more interesting to say, but that’s really about the extent of it, so far as I know.
~ Isaac
As far as I’m aware there is no difference to the North American usage in this one.
It means “insane” alone, where “mad” does double duty with the "angry " definition, but I think all of this is universal to the English-speaking world.
In the U.K. we use crazy in a couple of different ways, for example:
That car had some crazy wheelspin (crazy meaning excessive amounts of).
The guy went crazy and had to be locked up (crazy usually meaning mentally unstable).
Actually, I have episodes of the West Wing playing in the background, and it seems that they occasionally say “crazy” to mean “angry”. We don’t do that.
Just a thought.
~ Isaac
I haven’t noticed anybody else with this answer but here we use crazy to mean insane.
Mad has multiple meanings, too, as in “mad as fuck” (possibly regional).
‘Ker-razy’ - slightly sarcastic ‘way-out’ kind of expression. Also, probably more commonly, it can mean general confusion or disorganisation: “that’s a crazy way to structure a database”
I use mad to mean very unusual or unexpected “That was maaad!”
BTW when we say ‘pissed’ we usually mean drunk.
By the way, do Aussies, kiwis, and Merkins have the term “Pissing it down”?
Because that’s what it’s been doing all day here.
Yes, although we’d tend to say it slightly differently: it’s pissing down. Unfortunately it hasn’t done so very much over the past few years due to drought.
I think adding ‘it’ to the phrase is an Accrington thing 
pissing down is more universal.
Merkins? 
UK; it can mean insane in a general, non-clinical sense - “fifteen quid for steak and chips? that’s crazy”
And of course there’s Crazy Paving (in which ‘crazy’ means ‘cracked’), but that’s sort of irrelevant.
You have to say it out loud.
Americans
That’s how “Americans” is pronounced on the Isle of Man?
No. It’s been used on the board before. It’s an affectionate way of saying Americans.
No, it’s how it is pronounced in [parts of] the USA. It wouldn’t be funny otherwise.
[hi, jack] 'Merkins - That term prob’ly started rat heah in Amurika. There’s a cliche’d skit about a southern politician, maybe Lyndon Johnson, starting a speech, “Mah fella 'Merkans…”
“Pissing it down” - nope, never heard of it. I think that “piss” is slightly more off-color here than in the English-speaking countries. (Wait… isn’t piss the same range of colors everywhere?.. Well, never mind.) [/ hi, jack]