Everyone says, when you're emigrating to Australia: "Oh well, at least you won't have to learn a whole new language."
Are they kidding?
Here are a just a few of the words and phrases you'll be forced to absorb unless you want to be ridiculed at every turn (actually, you'll still attract derision if, like me, you tend to say Aussie words with a kind of Hugh Grant awkward coyness, but at least if you commit them to memory you'll be able to de-code when necessary).
USEFUL WORDS:
Dooner: duvet
Sauce: ketchup
Pants: trousers
Undies: pants (I'm having trouble with this at the moment, as I'm potty-training The Boy and keep referring to his 'brand new knickers...I mean pants...I mean UNDIES! He's confused to say the least.)
Rashy: long-sleeved top you wear to the beach / swimming to give 100% sun protection (It took me five goes of saying "A what?" before I understood what my neighbour was saying when she suggested I get one.)
Kinder / Kindy: nursery school
Capsicum: pepper (sounds hilarious when the police say "I had to use my capsicum spray to get the crazy witch off me." Not that I've ever heard the police say that. Honest. But you have to admit that capsicum spray sounds a bit weak. PEPPER spray, now there's a deterrent.)
Milk bar: small store, kinda like a newsagent that sells a few groceries. I assumed it was a bar that served milkshakes. No.
Sook: a crybaby.
When in doubt, put 'ies' or 'y' or 'o' at the end of a word: sunnies, tinny, billy, dunny, daggy, mozzie, footy, arvo, possie, aggro, barby, rellies.
eg. I went to the dunny this arvo then I put on my sunnies to go to the footy cos my mate was saving me a possie and a tinnie but the footy was daggy and there were too many mozzies and we got aggro so I went back for a barby with my rellies.
TRY REALLY HARD NOT TO SAY:
Root.
Especially don't say that you're rooting for a football team. Icky. You are barracking for a team. Never rooting. No no no. Unless you're a WAG.
USEFUL PHRASES:
Good on ya!: seriously, this can be used anytime, anywhere.
eg.1:"What have you been up to today?" "Shopping." "Good on ya!"
eg.2: "What have you been up to today?" "Made a million." "Good on ya!"
Standard greeting to an acquaintance (say at great speed):
"How you going?"
"Good, how you going?"
"Good."
No worries (I admit, I have started to say this. It's hard not to adopt an Aussie accent when I say it...I hope no one thinks I'm taking the wotsit . . . WHO ME??)
13 comments:
My guilty pleasures are Home & Away and Neighbours. I have absorbed the language so successfully that I often call people "Flamin' galah's" a la Alf, or "Young hoons." I use "No worrries" way too often and know most of the phrases you mention, however "rashy?" Rashy? Why rashy? *puzzles*
And Milk Bar meaning small shop I assume comes from it being the place you buy milk, but yeah, I'd totally assume it was a milkshake place. How disappointing.
There are very few true milk bars left. The original milk bar did indeed sell milkshakes (with malt for an extra 5c), and made the best hamburger (with beetroot) you'll ever hope to eat, and excellent hot chips & scallops (the potato kind, not the south-of-the-border shellfish) and 5c bags of mixed lollies (sweets) that would last a week, and also the paper and a few essential groceries like... milk.
Damn. I miss me local milk bar.
Sara, I think 'rashy' is something to do with sun rash...just a guess.
Misrule, I love the picture you've just painted of ye olde milk bars.
'Rashy' must be a Victorian thing. I have never heard that in 35 years of living in Australia. Then again in Queensland, you don't have to wear a long sleeve top to go to the beach...
'Good on ya' is also very useful used sarcastically. If someone's being annoying, or giving you a bit of aggro, say 'good on ya' while pulling your face into a grimace reserved for the smell of overflowing dunnies.I taught Camilla 'root' once and she thought it was hilarious and went around say 'root root root' for ages. Quite disconcerting coming from the young lady...
Ross, don't talk to me about Queensland fashion...it could end very badly for your people.
I like 'good on ya' used sarcastically, although sometimes I get mixed up between that and the supportive kind when it's directed at me. Cue hours of paranoia.
Please stop saying root on my blog.
I only really know "fuglies" from Summer Heights High. Brilliant!
Hehe, "fuglies" is great. I know Chris Lilley is making a new show but I can't find out any info on it...can't wait!
Rashy (aka Rashie) comes from 'Rash Vest', which is something that surfers were wearing well before that bloody Cancer Council started fluffing on about them.
A surfer will either wear it to: Prevent their nipples, chest, etc. from being worn off; Protect the shoulders and other moving parts from a neoprene rash; Prevent the skin from melting in the great Australia ozone hole.
Interesting, Sam. Sounds like a serious business. But I bet those surfies have a few pashies in their rashies. Eh? Eh?
(Sorry, I'll get me drover's coat.)
This made me laugh, Emily. All my 'rellies' are in Oz, so I completely understand - it's a foreign language!
Now, where's me tinnies?
PS - I loved hearing the word 'pash' on Neighbours.
Gillian, I agree - pash is a good one...I fear I'm a little too old to use it. I will have to use it in teen fiction instead.
I was in Oz for 3 months last year and couldn't believe how often newspapers and news reporters would use words like "doco" and "journo" - abbreivate or die seems to be the Aussie motto! ;)
I think you'll find it's "doona" though - there's a book called "the doona diet", about how sleeping more makes you thin. Hee.
Wow, a diet I can actually identify with! After several years of sleep deprivation I finally understand why I'm not willowy...(she said, with a mouthful of cake).
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