#6526
09/14/2000 11:54 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Here in the US, we are being treated to a lot of "feature" coverage of Australia in the run-up to the Olympics. I'm wondering how much we will be able to learn of the local lingo via television coverage.
I, for one, was chagrined to learn that Australians do NOT say "shrimp on the barbie," an illusion long cherished by many of us Sydneyoutsiders. One TV program interviewed a famous Sydney chef (his name is now long gone from short-term memory) who gently reminded the interviewer that Aussies don't say "shrimp," they say "prawn." He then proceeded to throw prawn on the barbie and serve it with a lovely Thai-inspired sauce.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200 |
i thought a shrimp was a small prawn.
the ocker image of australians has a lot to do with monty python and an ongoing english unease with the former colony.
another myth is the day/die thing. australians say "day" in comparison to the amercian/british "deh" (exaggeration).
still, if we didn't have stereotypes, who would we laugh at?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
william, I dunno! Are you originally from Oz? Here in the US (of A) 'shrimp' pretty much covers the entire crustacean phylum (subphylum? *throwing up hands*).
And what is "ocker"?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
AS, I LIU here... I won't ruin it for you! Yob is as yob does.  & thanks
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200 |
annastrophic, you could be right. i seem to remember shrimps being smaller than prawns and lobsters larger.
that was in my childhood in melbourne (yes, i am australian). and yes, my memory isn't as good as it should be!
maybe other australians can help out here.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
I've always said prawns for everything, small prawns for small ones all the way up to tiger prawns. I seem to remember my aunt calling the small ones shrimps, so that might have been common. Prawn cocktails always seem to have very small prawns, so I suspect we in Britain stopped calling them shrimps at some stage.
I now shop at Costco, and I looked today - there seems to be a real mixture, according to country of origin/intended market, very little to do with size.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 167
member
|
|
member
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 167 |
ocker = yobbish. - I really don't think that that captures the subtlety of the word; its really more unconsciously yobbish - a bit like hillbilly, if you like. I think yobbish has more pejorative and consciously uncouth connotations.
Also, the glossary of Oz expressions to which Tsuwm linked has to be viewed a little circumspectly - as with all guides to "argot", it's probably out of date as soon as it's written. A fair few of the expressions are also very ocker themselves!!!
|
|
|
#6534
09/14/2000 10:29 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
another myth is the day/die thing. australians say "day" in comparison to the amercian/britishPerhaps, but what about the way you Australians say "i"? Shall we launch launch the great Trans-Tasman "Seednee/Sudnee" debate?
|
|
|
#6535
09/14/2000 11:16 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
johnjohn, this is precisely why I am happy to have the opportunity to watch/listen to Australians on these TV programs. Yob, schmob.  I imagine y'all have much more access to American television than we do to Oz programming. So I will enjoy what I can find.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
One of my holiday jobs was stacking supermarket shelves, and I seem to remember being told then there was a legal difference under consumer protection. Above a certain number to the pint? gallon? they were prawns, and below that they were shrimps. It made sense to me, or why is "shrimp" used as an insult for the smaller amongst us? You can't imagine a lager lout yelling "hey prawn" rather than "hey shrimp" can you?
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
The Olympic ceremony is just starting - we're promised plenty of seafood!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
...and I clicked on this thread thinking it would be the perfect place to report on a piece of Olympic commentary:
'the team must be jubilating'
Aargh!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
To utter sounds of joy or exultation; to make demonstrations of joy; to rejoice, exult. In recent newspaper use, sometimes, To celebrate a jubilee or other joyful occasion.
a1641 Bp. R. Montagu Acts & Mon. Such as Almighty God did+replenish+could not but jubilate. 1659 Hammond On Ps. lxxxiv. 3 To cry aloud, vociferate or jubilate. 1721 R. Keith tr. à Kempis' Vall. Lilies xxvii. O ye Cherubim and Seraphim+how fervently, and how excellently do ye sing and jubilate aloud before God. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. I. v. i, Hope, jubilating, cries aloud that it will prove a miraculous Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness. 1851 S. Judd Margaret iii. The birds are jubilating in the woods.
[OED]
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
It's a bit like "How to lie with Statistics" - it seems to be possible that any word we look at had a previous life, so you can always argue on favour of almost any word on those grounds. All you need is a big enough dictionary! Who ever says jubilating these days. Surely it comes from the grand tradition of Colemanballs - I believe that Dan Quayle has a similar reputation in America. Here's a selecton (some from the Private Eye website - they offer £10 for any you send in): 'There goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class' (David Coleman at The Montreal Olympics)[I think that this is the original Colemanball] 'And for those of you who watched the last programme (Fanny and Johnny Craddock), I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's' (David Coleman at the start of Match of The Day) 'To play Holland, you have to play the Dutch.' (Ruud Gullit) "Sometimes in football you have to score goals." THIERRY HENRY, Sky Sports (Roger Main) "Quinn, for the umpteenth time, got his first goal of the current campaign." BRIAN MOORE, BBC Match of the Day (Ian Walton) "Michael Vaughan has a long history in the game ahead of him." MARK NICHOLAS, Channel 4 (Anna Lomax) "The Germans only have one player under twenty-two and he's twenty-three." KEVIN KEEGAN, BBC News (Steve Speight) For more - check out this site: http://www.siliconglen.com/jokes/colemanballs.html
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
You missed my all-time favourite - I am now jubilating(!) at the chance to add it:
'The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey.'
|
|
|
#6542
09/20/2000 10:27 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
Bridget
Well spotted - what an omission!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
football... and cricket...? here come some baseball quotes from Yogi Berra:
"It ain't over till it's over."
"This is like deja vu all over again."
"You can observe a lot just by watchin'."
on seeing a Steve McQueen movie: - "He must have made that before he died"
"If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."
"Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical"
Mrs. Lindsay - "You certainly look cool." - Yogi Berra - "Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself."
"Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."
Interviewer - "Why, you're a fatalist !" - Yogi Berra - "You mean I save postage stamps ?
Not me."
"Slump ? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hittin."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
'The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey.'Now who's dwelling in the gutter??
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
>'The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey.' Now who's dwelling in the gutter??< Just visiting, Jackie! Some of my dearest friends live there...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
Ah, punctuation! Maybe I really meant 'Just visiting Jackie'...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
Perhaps Bridget and Jackie -- our two ladies of the street (grin) -- will be interested in another meaning of 'gutter': the space in front of a racecourse totalisator (from Baker: The drum [Australian character and slang]).
|
|
|
#6548
09/21/2000 12:21 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Oh, I can't stand it! Ow, my stomach hurts from laughing so hard!!! First--Bridget, I don't recall issuing an invitation to my abode, but let me do so belatedly: you, and all, are welcome at any time.  I'll save some of my best garbage just for you! Now--paulb, living in the city that is the home of the most famous racetrack in the world, I am very much at home in that gutter as well! I went there all the time in my childhood with my dad. Placed my first bet at 15--the clerk didn't even look up.
|
|
|
#6549
09/21/2000 12:22 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Colemanballs reminds me of buckyballs--neat invention, even neater word!!
|
|
|
#6550
09/22/2000 10:21 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
There's an old story from bureaucracy about a senior officer who, after reading a report, sent it to his superior with the word 'balls' written on it. The superior was not amused and reprimanded his junior.
Soon afterwards, he sent a similar report to his superior with the words 'round objects' written on it. It was returned to him promptly with the note: "Who is Round and to what does he object?"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Yob, schmobNo, I can't allow this to go unchallenged  OK, so it is the quasi-Yiddish habit to use "schm-" in front of any word to make a point, but the WHOLE point of "yob" is that it is cockney back-slang and is only comprehensible if you read it backwards - i.e, "boy." So what sort of a word is "bomhcs", already? The fact that the back-slang word has been taken over and its meaning perverted by the unwitting makes little difference to me - back-slang HAS to be comprehensible when re-inverted, else there is no point to its use. So take the occab out of your epip and put in the above and ekoms that !!!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
take the occab out of your epip and put in the above and ekoms that !!! "?Siht si gnirts hcihw - trpos ,yad'G"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
?Siht si gnirts hcihw - trpos ,yad'G" I submit that this is a perfectly proper string for my short course in Cockney Back-slang - (which you have not quite managed, although you are working on the right lines.) The distinctive Australian accent is derived, at least partly, from exactly the same source as is the accent of the East End of London (the only area that can truly be called Cockney: it does NOT really apply to all residents of that great city.) East London was populated mainly by internal immigration from Essex, Suffolk and, to a lesser extent, Norfolk, (the area generally is aka "East Anglia) and the disctinctive Cockney "twang" is an adaptation of the East Anglian accent. During the upheavals of the Nineteenth century in England, there was, from time to time, much unemployment and social distress in East Anglia (and indeed, many other places.) One remedy was for philanthropists, churches (espec. Non-conformist ones) Trades Unions and other organisations to sponsor emigration to the Colonies. The colony most favoured by East Anglia was Australia and very large numbers of immigrants came from that part of England, bringing their distinctive "twang" with them, of course. So Cockney and Austrlain have a lot in common, as far as their linguistic roots are concerned. Therefore, lessons in Cockney vocabulary and usage, I submit, are not out of place in this string. Maverick, your bit of back slang should more properly be transcribed thus: "Yadggee, torps -which ingstree is this?" Not all words inverted - mainly nouns and verbs, and word order maintained. It is the sounds that are inverted and corrupted/adapted for greater euphony. But as a first attempt it shows sympathy for the genre - C+
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347 |
There's nothing uniquely Australian about the usage (as far as I know), but several times during the Olympic coverage I've heard "medal" used as a verb. "The Americans are going to medal in this race". I was expecting some sort of interference to occur. Is this horrible development a recent one? What's next? Venus Williams cups at Wimbledon? (Now there's a novel thought!)  Tiger Woods trophies again? (Whilst the rest of the field atrophies?)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
I don't know how many of you noticed, mainly because a lot of you aren't from the US, but one of NBC's recent "Olympic Moments" was about Australian vs. American English. The host of the show basically had big cards with an Aussie term on one side and the American counterpart on the other and he went around Sydney asking what they meant. I found it rather amusing because it's one of the frequent topics of conversation here, but I can't say that I really learned much because I wasn't paying too close attention.
|
|
|
#6556
09/25/2000 12:00 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Thanks, J. That's why I started this thread. I wanted to learn more Oz terms. I'm sorry I missed the "Olympics Moments" program. Surely there's a web site
|
|
|
#6557
09/25/2000 12:06 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Yob, schmob
No, I can't allow this to go unchallenged
Oh, I was just extrapolating. Diversity and all that. BTW, we may be YARTing here.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
can't allow this to go unchallenged I was just extrapolating etc. Au contraire thank you for the challenge and the opportunity to demonstrate my knowledge of yet another foreign language. 
|
|
|
#6560
09/25/2000 10:02 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
sympathy for the genre - C+
Gee, thanks, Miss! To suggest a simile, I feel like a fish savaged by a bicycle!
But backslang and Oz... hhm, I await the paper with interest (online I hope), perhaps with the title The Meta-language of London and Melbourne?
In deference to those whose specialist area this might be, I would still like to suggest that Robert Hughes' book gives a fairer picture of the real roots of Australian life and therefore language (full details at foot of this message). He deals with the forcible transportation of convicts on which the initial colonies were founded, before the kind of philanthropically-minded assisted emigration got started which J mentions.
The seeds of Australian transportation were sown in the fertile ground of rapid social upheaval in Britain, with three factors prominent. Firstly America, until then a repository of England’s unwilling exports at the rate of 40,000 people a year, ceased to be available from the time of the revolution (thus a by-product of the American revolution became the founding of Australia!). Secondly between 1801 and 1840 the population of England virtually doubled – an unmanageable explosion against a background of labour displacement and agricultural disasters. Workers “were pincered between falling wages and rising prices… runaway unemployment and the inexorable spread of enclosure” of common grazing lands (Robert Hughes). Thirdly, England had no penitentiary system (William Penn’s ideas took some time to trickle back to the brutal mother country), and her creaking and often arbitrary system of ‘justice’ was threatening to collapse under the weight of these social pressures. A brief enumeration of transported numbers, decade by decade, gives this picture:
1787-1810 11,800 (men and women)
1811-1820 164,00
1821-1830 32,800
1831-1840 51,200 (1840 ended transportation to NSW, with the last transport ship to Western Australia arriving in January 1868)
It is notable that the decade of most vigorous recourse to transportation fell exactly when England’s population was rising at the most rapid rate.
“The stereotype insists that the human fodder of transportation sprang from the root of British decency, the innocent starving yeomen in the British village” (Hughes). The actual truth was otherwise, showing the majority of the transportees were town dwellers.
LL Robson’s statistical analysis in his survey of 1965 examined a random sample of 1 in 20 names in the public record office in London, finding the following categories of crime amongst those transported:
34% larceny
15% burglary
13% stealing domestic fowl etc
6% stealing clothing
3% offences against the person
2% coining or counterfeiting
1.5% treason, conspiracy, union organization etc (includes Ch-yartists?)
70% were tried in England, mainly in 6 county assizes: Lancashire (aye, there was trouble at t’mill), Yorkshire, Warwickshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire and Kent – these areas were home to 4 in 10 transportees. 20% of transportees came from Ireland, mostly tried in Dublin. It would therefore seem more likely that the single most dominant linguistic influence might come from the Irish contingent, rather than back-slanging Cockneys.
However, there is an urban slang that definitely did get exported. 60% of the English transportees had previous criminal convictions. Hughes suggests that “although we cannot speak of a criminal class with the same confidence as early Victorians did, there certainly was a subculture of crime in the British Isles… (which) expressed itself in common interests, cant language, specialization…” Some of the specialised trade terms he mentions (quoting Henry Mayhew’s contemporary reports) are as follows:
‘Snoozers’ Sleepers at stations decamping with others’ luggage
‘Sawney-hunters’ Purloiners of bacon from shop windows
‘Dead Lurkers’ Stealers of coats and umbrellas from passages at dusk
‘Skinners’ Women who enticed sailors and children to go with them and then stripped them of their clothes
‘Kitten Hunters’ Stealers of pewter pots left drying on railings
‘Bulker’ Runner of interference for a sneak thief
‘Pradnapper’ Horse thief
‘Buffer’ Dog-killer who sold their pelts to glovers
Other wonderful phrases reported include ‘rum daddles’ for expert pickpocket hands, ‘buzz-gloaks’ for a pickpocket, a ‘fam lay’ for palming of a stolen ring, and the squire of the tribe whose ‘means are two pops and a galloper’ – a mounted highwayman with two pistols!
I have no information on whether this language survived in any shape or form in Australian life; my preconception would be that it would be consciously rejected by the second generation, the so-called ‘Currency’ or native-born white Australians.
In the latter half of the 19th century there were of course massive and very rapid changes in Australian population. With colonies established on every seaboard, the gold rush of the 1850s drew in a new influx of people from all over the world. The 1871 census showed the following demographic changes over the preceding 20 years:
New South Wales 197,000 - 500,000
Victoria 77,000 - 730,000
South Australia 67,000 - 189,000
Queensland 30,000 - 122,000
Western Australia 6,000 - 25,000
- so maybe the cant elements of language would have been simply swamped by dilution as well. I would be interested to hear of any known Oz etymology deriving from cant sources – anyone care to shed some light or point to where to LIU?
To conclude, I would heartily recommend Hughes’ remarkable volume, wherever in the world you live or whatever your interests. It is a powerful story of a unique episode in human affairs. The facts and figures I have abstracted here do no trace of justice to the tale he weaves, with great insight and humour. The Washington Post describes it as “popular history in the best sense… commanding prose” and the Australian Sunday Telegraph suggests it is “becoming the standard opus on the convict years”. Enjoy.
Title: The Fatal Shore
Author: Robert Hughes
Publisher: Pan Paperbacks (Macmillan General Books)
Publication: 1988
ISBN: 0 330 29892 5
|
|
|
#6561
09/25/2000 10:33 AM
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I feel like a fish savaged by a bicycleNo savagery intended I was poking fun at my own didacticism, if anything. ( twice, today, I have typed "fun" as "fum": is my keyboard trying to tell me something?) Thanks for the useful rundown on Oz emmigration, and especially for the reference. I will read that with great interest. Thanks
|
|
|
#6562
09/25/2000 12:21 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
< New South Wales 197,000 - 500,000
Victoria 77,000 - 730,000
South Australia 67,000 - 189,000
Queensland 30,000 - 122,000
Western Australia 6,000 - 25,000>
Thanks, Maverick, for these figures. What happened to Tasmania? We haven't seceded yet, but those mainlanders (ie the rest of Australia) are forever leaving us off maps and other representations of Australia. I couldn't see an appropriate descriptive word amongst the 'Dead lurkers' and 'Pradnappers' which might describe their 'forgetfulness', but we're working on it -- we're a feisty lot down here!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
What happened to Tasmania?
I suspect you're right, paulb. Tasmania doesn't get the attention, in many ways, that is deserved. However, you'll be pleased to know RH does it proud, and the particularly complex relationship that emerged between London/Hobart/NSW is explored carefully and with a subtle intelligence. It was certainly an eye-opener for me.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
oops! Sorry, left the light switch on
|
|
|
#6565
09/26/2000 12:00 AM
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 167
member
|
|
member
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 167 |
<<I have no information on whether this language survived in any shape or form in Australian life; >>
I must say I recognise none of these phrases at all, nor any contemporary slang deriving from them. I suspect you're right that subsequent generations quite consciously rejected them.
|
|
|
|
|
