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.
Learning about the local language can help you the next time you visit Australia, as it can limit the confusion that arises when speaking with the natives. This makes it much easier to communicate with the locals and travel around the country. For example, if you want to hit the beach on the Gold Coast, knowing the local vernacular can help if you have to ask for directions to a particular beach or get lost along a certain stretch of highway. Make sure that you book your stay in Gold Coast with Expedia for the lowest possible rates.
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 βOβ 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.
Jack Scott says
Aussie directness, lack of pretension and ripe way with words is really appealing. When my Yankee editor was trawling through my book he kept tripping over British idioms and saying “I don’t understand this, I don’t understand that.” My inclination was to tell him to look it up, he might learn something. My actual response was, of course, more polite. Some great phrases here, duly filed away for the future.
lesley snell says
My Dad always said Stone a crows and he was an East Londoner.I think your father in law must be adding breed cos I don’t hear anyone talking like that much.nowadays………not in the burbs anyway
Kym Hamer says
Ah yes I have had many a close encounter with oily rags and custard skins. In fact, I have many many many of these examples to share but instead, in the interest of enriching your life with even more vernacular from that wide brown land (ref: Dorothea Mackellar), will pass on 2 of my all time faves:
1. as a ‘raw prawn’ alternative:
Don’t p*ss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
2. just because I heard John Torode (Aussie chef in London) say this on Masterchef the other night;
No wuckers.
Emma Caroline Lewis says
But I do recognize some of those phrases as UK phrases and we also use them here in Jamaica. Many of them are quite weird, though. My brother has picked up such strong Australianisms (plus an accent) since living there for 25 years, but I haven’t lost my accent at all since living in Jamaica for the same length of time. Which is odd. BUT I can speak patois of course… Which is virtually a separate language altogether… I think the love of rhyming slang must be a historical throwback to the mother country, don’t you think? Another funny thing we found Aussies do is – “tinny” for tin, etc. Yeah, stone the crows is definitely cockney. I also found the Aussie use of language somehow rather old-fashioned, when we were there. Jamaica is so near the U.S. I guess we have picked up so many Americanisms that I found Aussie talk rather quaint!!
Russell V J Ward says
Oh you should witness my mid-week training sessions on the Northern Beaches, Lesley. Half the guys there come out with these turns of phrase. Our trainer is the ring leader, but that’s a story for another day.
Yes, I think many of the phrases come from London or thereabouts once upon a time. It’s reassuring to hear familiar sayings from the old country.
Russell V J Ward says
Refreshing, isn’t it? I agree with you. Some find it off-putting, others appealing. I kind of like it. Imagine how different things would have been if you had an Australian editor. He’d be asking for more of the same!
Russell V J Ward says
I have to admit to picking up an accent since moving here. In Canada, I largely retained my English accent but here I’ve become a bit of a mongrel and the ‘twang’ has crept in (maybe blame my wife for that!). I definitely think many of the phrases and rhyming slang are a throwback to the mother country. It’s too uncanny to hear many of the same (or similar) turns of phrase. There are so many words or unusual sentences I could list here but had to go with my top few π
Russell V J Ward says
I’m glad you commented, Kym. I almost wrote this post with you in mind, wondering what little gems you might add! So I sincerely appreciate the additions, especially ‘no wuckers’. I hadn’t heard that before so googled it. ‘No wucking furries’ came back. Made me laugh out loud. Thank you π
Adventures says
Some of these are present in American vernacular, but many are new. I’m clueless as to what a yob or spanner is. The Dutch have lots of fun phrases, especially ‘ben je van de trap gevallen?’ Literally it means ‘did you fall down the stairs’ but some Dutchies say it when someone gets a strange or radical haircut.
Russell V J Ward says
Really? That’s interesting. Once again, the English language is a funny old thing as it moves from one country to another. Lol. A yob is a hooligan, a trouble-maker (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/yob). What would be the American equivalent? A spanner is a wrench. Not a particularly pretty object – functional, robust, unattractive.
Bizarre Dutchie saying. As in, did you hit your head to do something so stupid or did you just bounce down the stairs and mess your hair up?
adamvagley says
Yes, the shortening of most words has amused us since arriving in Sydney — I recently heard “pollies” for politicians and “boaties” for…boatsmen I guess. Within the first week my wife’s name, Sharon, was shortened to Shaz or Shazza by some people. The one exception is beetroot since in the U.S. we use the simpler version “beet”.
My favorites are still “dusty” for hungover and “Sweet F.A.”
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks for your comment, Adam. Pollies and boaties are well-used here. I’ve heard them often. Not heard dusty but duly filed away for future use! Sweet FA is a good ‘un π
Heather says
Interesting about the shortening and rhyming of words. Now I know how one of my friends got his nickname! (Thank you for clarifying what a yob is, BTW) π
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks Heather. Yep, if it can be shortened, it will be. And happy to help. Always avoid the yobbo π
Karen Nager Loethen says
Having just moved to Brisbane this month, we are constantly amused with the tendency of the Aussies to shorten everything. “Ambo” for ambulance just cracks me up. LOL
Thanks for the blog post, very enjoyable! I’ll try to add a bit of luster to my conversations…she’ll be apples.
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks, Karen. Glad you liked it! Shortening is par for the course here. I’m considering this carefully in the context of coming up with baby names for my soon-to-arrive first born. Even though I think the name can’t be shortened, I’m certain that someone will find a way to! π
HousewifeDownUnder says
It took me a long time to realise that “arvo” was actually a word here. I thought people were saying a real word and I just couldn’t understand it because of their accents. Like I’d hear a weather report and they’d say something like “mostly cloudy this arvo” and I was like “wtf are they saying????” I thought something was wrong with my ears. Finally my husband explained that they really were saying what I thought they were saying and explained it’s just the Aussie way of saying “afternoon”. There is no logical connection between “arvo” and “afternoon”!!!!
Russell V J Ward says
Lol. That’s too funny. No idea where arvo comes from but I find myself using it more often than not these days. It’s a great word to have in your Aussie back pocket π