English by another name

[lloyd_5]

We are often going on about US English being different to UK English or Australian English.

Just try this for size and hide your 'budgie smuggler' (Speedos for men);

Aussie slang

 

[litmlove]

Some of that seemed a little strange to me, but most of that is common knowledge.

My favourite slang isn't even the slang words, it is those sayings. You know?

• "no worries" - "just chill out"
  
• "She'll be right mate" - "It is going to be good/ok"
  
• "All froth and no beer" - "no substance"
  
• "Buggered if I know" - buggered roughly means "fucked"
  
• "Bloody Oath" - "amazing but true" (not the exact meaning - a little crude but not offensive)"
  
• chinwag - "slacking off"
  
• "Brown noser" - "sucking up to your superiors"

What really amuses me is that: "Root" - "fuck" (but less offensive, more like "sex"). Not exactly a slang word when it is common usage, but it is funny because the Americans use the word for a different purpose

 

[oggbashan]

One of my favourite poets:

C J Dennis

THE AUSTRALAISE

A Marching Song
Air - Onward Christian Soldiers

Fellers of Australier,
Blokes an' coves an' coots,
Shift yer --- carcases,
Move yer --- boots.
Gird yer --- loins up,
Get yer --- gun,
Set the --- enermy
An' watch the blighters run.

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on,
Have some --- sense.
Learn the --- art of
Self de- --- -fence.

Have some --- brains be-
Neath yer --- lids.
An' swing a --- sabre
Fer the missus an' the kids.
Chuck supportin' --- posts,
An' strikin' --- lights,
Support a ---- fam'ly an'
Strike fer yer --- rights.

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on, etc.

Joy is --- fleetin',
Life is --- short.
Wot's the use uv wastin' it
All on --- sport?
Hitch yer --- tip-dray
To a --- star.
Let yer --- watchword be
"Australi- --- -ar!"

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on, etc.

'0w's the --- nation
Goin' to ixpand
'Lest us --- blokes an' coves
Lend a --- 'and?
'Eave yer --- apathy
Down a --- chasm;
'Ump yer --- burden with
Enthusi- --- -asm.

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on, etc.

W'en old mother Britain
Calls yer native land
Take a --- rifle
In yer --- 'and
Keep yer --- upper lip
Stiff as stiff kin be,
An' speed a --- bullet for
Post- --- -ity.

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on, etc.

W'en the --- bugle
Sounds "Ad- --- -vance"
Don't be like a flock er sheep
In a --- trance
Biff the --- Kaiser
Where it don't agree
Spifler- --- -cate him
To Eternity.

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on, etc.

Fellers of Australier,
Cobbers, chaps an' mates,
Hear the --- German
Kickin' at the gates!
Blow the --- bugle,
Beat the --- drum,
Upper-cut an' out the cow
To kingdom- --- -come!

CHORUS:
Get a --- move on,
Have some --- sense.
Learn the --- art of
Self de- --- -fence.

(With some acknowledgements to W.T. Goodge.)

Footnote to 1915 reissue - Where a dash (---) replaces a missing word, the adjective "blessed" may be interpolated. In cases demanding great emphasis, the use of the word "blooming" is permissible. However, any other word may be used that suggests itself as suitable.


An animation pretending to be C J Dennis reading The Australaise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-ZhGiirIU

 

[Handley_Page]

I find it strange that the language of the North (say, Yorkshire & North),
is still not commonly heard. Words like 'Canny' which could have anyone tied up for a while, for example.

 

[oggbashan]

I find it strange that the language of the North (say, Yorkshire & North),
is still not commonly heard. Words like 'Canny' which could have anyone tied up for a while, for example.

What I found interesting is that when TV journalists interviewed Birmingham locals about the alleged plot by Islamist radicals to take over some schools, most of the locals, Muslim or not, all spoke the same Brummie accent.

It was even more obvious with the Muslim pupils of some of the relevant schools.

It reminded my wife of Lenny Henry's response when told to go back where he came from. His response was "What, Dudley?" in a Midlands accent.







This is Lenny Henry:

http://www.tvchoicemagazine.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/interview_image/intex/lenny_henry.png

 

[Bramblethorn]

We are often going on about US English being different to UK English or Australian English.

Just try this for size and hide your 'budgie smuggler' (Speedos for men);

Aussie slang

FWIW, the abbreviations mentioned in paragraph 4 would be heard almost anywhere. OTOH, if you used "flat out like a lizard drinking" at my work people would probably think you were parodying Broad Australian dialect. The bit in the article about Kevin Rudd being seen as insincere for overusing "Aussie" slang is dead on.

I'm often taken for British when I travel (though not by Britons!) because my idiom's somewhere between General Australian English and Cultivated - not uncommon but not part of the Aussie stereotype.

One of my favourite poets:

C J Dennis

THE AUSTRALAISE...

Footnote to 1915 reissue - Where a dash (---) replaces a missing word, the adjective "blessed" may be interpolated. In cases demanding great emphasis, the use of the word "blooming" is permissible. However, any other word may be used that suggests itself as suitable.

Heh. I'm curious as to whether non-Aussies get the joke in the footnote.

FWIW, here's one of my favourite Australian poems from the other end of the linguistic spectrum.

What I found interesting is that when TV journalists interviewed Birmingham locals about the alleged plot by Islamist radicals to take over some schools, most of the locals, Muslim or not, all spoke the same Brummie accent.

It was even more obvious with the Muslim pupils of some of the relevant schools.

It reminded my wife of Lenny Henry's response when told to go back where he came from. His response was "What, Dudley?" in a Midlands accent.

There's a story about ex-PM John Howard talking to an Asian-looking student:

"Where are you from?"

"Adelaide."

"I meant, where were you born?"

"Adelaide."

My co-worker is ethnically Chinese but speaks in a very broad Australian accent, even though her parents are first-generation migrants. A friend of ours is ethnically Japanese but speaks no Japanese - she was brought up in Austria before coming to Australia, which makes her accent very confusing if you don't know the back-story.

 

[Hypoxia]

English by another name is Anglish. I much prerfer that.

My co-worker is ethnically Chinese but speaks in a very broad Australian accent, even though her parents are first-generation migrants. A friend of ours is ethnically Japanese but speaks no Japanese - she was brought up in Austria before coming to Australia, which makes her accent very confusing if you don't know the back-story.

I met a 12-year-old girl in Antigua Guatemala. She was native Quiché Mayan, but had been adopted as an infant and raised in Cincinnati. Typical USA gal. Her blonde mom (a college security chief) was back in La Antigua looking to adopt again. She'd bought young Alexandria traditional Quiché garb. Alex walked down the street looking like any other Quiché gal. Locals stopped to talk to her; she understood not a word, could only respond in her flat Midwestern accent. She was glad to have gringos like me to talk with!

TIP: When budget traveling to Antigua Guatemala, stay at Posada La Merced. Gail the manager is a Kiwi. Bargain rates, ultra clean, very friendly, excellent location, and the world's best coffee is right next door at Fernando's, cheap.

 

[oggbashan]

...

My co-worker is ethnically Chinese but speaks in a very broad Australian accent, even though her parents are first-generation migrants. A friend of ours is ethnically Japanese but speaks no Japanese - she was brought up in Austria before coming to Australia, which makes her accent very confusing if you don't know the back-story.

One of my friends at school (one of the many schools I attended) was the son of an unlikely marriage.

His father was a British Civil Engineer working on constructing a railway in Spain at the time the Spanish Civil War started. The railway line ran through part of a Spanish Grandee's estate and he had to negotiate with the family for access during the work.

He met all the family, including one of the daughters. She was the only member of the family on the estate when Franco's troops arrived. He 'rescued' her and claimed that they were married, so she was a British citizen.

They weren't married, so she wasn't British, but his lies saved her from execution as being a supporter of the 'wrong' side.

He managed to travel with her to Gibraltar where they did marry. He also managed to get travel documents for her parents to join them in the UK.

So my friend was half Spanish and half English. He spoke standard English and his mother's family upper class Castilian Spanish. Eventually he became a Professor of Spanish History at a Spanish University, and his (Spanish) family had managed to retain much of their ancestral land. He conducted his lectures in Spanish, even when attending a conference in Cambridge.

At that conference, he was asked a question by an English lecturer. He replied in English. The lecturer complimented him on his command of English, to which he replied:

"It should be reasonable. I was born in SE London..."

While we were friends he told his mother that I spoke Spanish. I was invited to tea. I was reluctant to speak my Spanish, but his mother insisted. I spoke a few sentences but she clapped her hands over her ears, protesting "That's not Spanish!"

It was, but not her Spanish. I had learned it in Gibraltar from our family maid and the Dockyard workers. The maid's Spanish was heavily accented Andalusian. The Dockyard workers Spanish was equally accented but with <expletive deleted> for every other word.

I have been trying to unlearn that Spanish ever since, but once I get into the flow of speaking Spanish, those bad habits return and make Spaniards wince.

My French is nearly as bad. My final French studies and examinations were taken in Australia. 50+ years on I still speak French with a thick Strine accent. But my wife's French is the crisp clear-cut accent of the French academic establishment. She was an Au-pair to a long-retired Professor of French Literature, who had gone blind. Much of her duties involved reading the French Classics to him. He insisted that she used perfect diction.

So whenever my wife and I are in France, the locals think she IS French who has married an Australian hick.