As Australian As Ostrahyun


Photo By Darryl Mason

Some of these 'You Know You're An Australian When....' lines from this Reddit thread are as old as faxed office joke sheets, some are more current, but many seem echoes of an Australian era already fading in our cultural rear view mirror :

• You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn.

• You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden.

• You're liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans "rooting" for something.

• You pronounce Melbourne as 'Mel-bn'.

• You pronounce Penrith as 'Pen-riff'.

• You can translate: 'Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas.'

• You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep.

• You call your best friend 'a total bastard' but someone you really, truly despise is just 'a bit of a bastard'.

• You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife.

• You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis.

• Hamburger with Beetroot? Of course!

• You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of The Angels song 'Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again'.

• You believe that the confectionery known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year.

• You believe that every important discovery in the world was made by an Australian but then sold off to the Yanks for a pittance.

• You believe that the more you shorten someones name the more you like them.

• You understand that 'excuse me' can sound rude, while 'scuse me' is always polite.

• You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle and a seat belt buckle becomes a pretty good branding iron.

• Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket.

• You believe the phrase 'smart casual' refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered.

• You know how to abbreviate every word, all of which usually end in O: arvo, combo, garbo, kero, lezzo, metho, milko, muso, rego, servo, smoko, speedo, righto etc.

• You know that the barbeque is a political arena; the person holding the tongs is always the boss and usually a man. And the women make the salad.

• You say 'no worries' quite often, whether you realise it or not.

• You know that roo meat tastes pretty good, but not as good as barra. Or a meat pie.

• You 'rock up' for meetings.

• You know what the word "girt" means.
  
  
• Where you live is technically still in a drought but your house is underwater from a flood.
  

More Here

Why Australians Say "I'll Kick Your Arse" Instead Of "I'll Kick Your Ass"

Piers explains all why in Crikey :

For me it’s all about the ‘r’. It leaps off the page with a meaty trill, evoking at once the hairy bum of a commando-kilted highlander and the war cry of a Cornish pirate. By contrast, ‘ass’ packs virtually no punch. To my mind it bleats in a plaintive falsetto, conjuring nothing more than a pair of sculpted ’tocks in spandex hot pants, waiting to be drop-kicked by a muddy boot.

The issue is probably more about spelling than language and I would wager that it’s a uniquely Australian dilemma. I very much doubt that ‘ass’ will be introduced into Britain any more than Americans are likely to adopt ‘arse’. Why? Linguistic jingoism aside, perhaps it has something to do with pronunciation. To the extent that written English words have at least some relationship to the way they sound, an Australian English ‘ass’ will probably sound pretty close to an Australian English ‘arse’. This is because Australians typically don’t make use of the so-called post-vocalic (or after-vowel) ‘r’, which means that for us the words ‘balmy’ and ‘barmy’ are pronounced identically. Contrast this with an American pronouncing ‘car’ as ‘carrgh’ (known as the rhotic ‘r’) or a Scot rolling the ‘r’ in ‘person’ (known as a trill or tap, depending on its length).

Kelly Gets Into The (Historical & Cultural) Detail Here

From the Wonder Of Whiffling (And Other Extraordinary Words In The English Language) by Adam Jacot de Boinod, a few Australian entries in Best New Words Of The Decade :

barbecue stopper : an issue of major public importance, which will excite the interest of voters

flairing : the action of bartenders balancing, catching, flipping, spinning or throwing (bottles, glasses, napkins, straws) with finesse and style

dog-whistle politics : to present your message so that only your supporters hear it properly

flashpackers : intrepid, but comfortably-off travellers

That's it? That's all Australians have contributed to neologia in the first decade of the 21st century?

Commenters here rip the full list to shreds, and come up with many, many better and more widely used 'New Words.'

As far as new words from around the world go, it's downright criminal 'Fucktard' didn't make the list.

'Meh', as used by Lisa Simpson (meaning bored, unimpressed), however, did make the list.

So it's not all bad.