The Olympics truck has rolled on by (at least until the Paralympics). Games fever has passed. London 2012 is over and done with. Rio awaits in four years. It's a pretty good time to cool your jets, maybe give the other things in your life a fair suck of the sav, and make sure you don't get your knickers in a knot when doing so.
If you've no idea what I'm talking about it's thanks to the wonders of the Australian vernacular creeping into my lexicon. In other words 'Strine, as it's known in this neck of the woods, has taken hold of me in its rough, callused grip.
I've grown partial to using a bit of 'Strine over the years. From barking up the wrong tree to taking a bull by its horns, I'll slip in a couple of phrases here and there, even if I'm not fully aware I'm doing so.
But whether I'm acting like a bull in a china shop or talking all piss and wind, I feel duly obliged to open up the book on the Aussie language, share a few golden nuggets with you here on ISOALLO, and help you better understand an Australian in the process.
Photo credit: Carolina Ren (Flickr Creative Commons)
The language down under
The Aussie language surely testifies to their verbal inventiveness and happy go-lucky approach to life. There's nothing pretentious about an Australian's conversation (unless you live in the swankier parts of this city). They tell it as it is and they'll throw in a few colourful expressions or well aimed insults for good measure.
It can be both enlightening and also very unnerving. There's none of the beating around the bush you'll find in the UK or the slightly reserved approach of, say, the Nordic countries. In Australia, if you've got something to say, you say it. End of story.
The problem is that half the time you need a bloody dictionary to understand them. My father-in-law is a case in point.
When we spend the day together, I find myself either laughing out loud or scratching my head. I don't know where he gets these phrases from and I'm in awe of how he manages to innocently slip the most extraordinary phrase into a regular conversation without batting an eyelid.
I might as well be talking to a London Cockney. It's all apples and pears and how's your mother combined with a tip of the hat to the old cobbers from the outback at the turn of the century.
My wife recently told him that she'd bought a new company car, a Mazda 6 wagon. "Those things are gas guzzlers," he replied. "You should have got a Ford Focus. They run on the smell of an oily rag".
Think Crocodile Dundee meets Steve Irwin who marries Dame Edna Everage and you have the vocabulary of my father-in-law.
Shortening and rhyming
Australians may well be the laziest nation in the world when it comes to speaking to each other. Any words containing more than three syllables are chopped in half and an ‘O’ is usually added on the end.
For example, a service station becomes servo, a bottle shop becomes bottlo, employees of the ambulance service are better know as ambos, the afternoon is the arvo, a smoke break is a smoko, and a yob is a yobbo. Friends' names are also shortened. Think Stevo, Jonno, Davo. See, it's easy when you know how.
The Australian penchant for rhyming slang is not unlike its Cockney cousin and can probably be traced back to the convict origins. A large number of Aussie words and phrases supposedly date back to the country's pioneering past, having been coined by long-forgotten shearers, drovers, and other bush workers and lovers of sheep.
As a result, many colourful phrases address the partaking of alcohol, sexual activity and bodily functions - or all three. In fact, some of the more lively phrases are so similar to things I've heard said in England that I'm not even sure which comes from which and who said what. The similarities are often uncanny.
A couple of chestnuts
I wanted to share a few of my personal favourites with the caveat that these have come from the mouths of babes. Or my wife. And her father. God love 'em both.
Get your laughing gear around these:
- It runs on the smell of an oily rag - that's a fairly efficient vehicle you've got there.
- Cool your jets - slow down, be patient.
- She'll be apples - it'll be alright, it'll be good in the end.
- As mad as a cut snake - not a happy chappy, to be avoided at all costs.
- Stone the crows - holy cow, bugger me.
- Couldn't peel skin off a custard - not very good at doing something, try again.
- Pissin' into the wind - wasting time doing something that can't easily be achieved.
- As ugly as a bag of spanners - pretty ugly.
- About as attractive as a box of frogs - even uglier, maybe avoid this one.
- Don't come the raw prawn with me mate - don't try to hoodwink me, don't try to rip me off buddy-o.
If you fancy having a gander at a few more, visit this website here.
Have you heard any interesting Australian phrases or slang? Any unique and strange ways of saying something where you are in the world?
Do share below.
Sign up for regular email updates. It's easy and free.
