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I recognise none of these phrases...

Thanks jj - which tends to confirm the sample of Oztymology I've sampled from my Melbourne cousins, most of which I can nearly understand

Does anyone have a clue where to find out more about Oz language and influences on the net?


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>Does anyone have a clue where to find out more about Oz language and influences on the net?<

At the risk of being confused with tsuwm, might I suggest typing 'Australian slang' into google.com? That's what I did. A great many pages came up. I had a look at a few on the first page and thought the first was the most impressive:

http://www.koalanet.com/australian-slang.html

One of the things I like about this is that it says it is trying to include only specifically Australian slang. (It doesn't succeeed, but it tries!) I can't count how many times I've had proud Australian quote Aussie rhyming slang at me, all unaware that in the UK we use the same phrase and call it Cockney rhyming slang.

Of course, a site that tries to exclude shared British / Australian slang may not be the best for some poor North Americans who haven't been exposed to enough external influences, but hey, can't please all the people all the time.



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Thanks Bridget - perfect start.

(What tsuwm neglects to mention is that the Great God LIU demands 24 hour service... )


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>At the risk of being confused with tsuwm...

oh, you're *much more photogenic!


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Bridget, that's a great site, especially for those of us who know little Australian slang outside of "G'Day, mate". I was rather surprised to find that "bastard" is a term of endearment.


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I was rather surprised to find that "bastard" is a term of endearment.

Fair suck of the sav, Jazzo, mate! I don't reckon that definition's ridgy-didge. A bloke'd wanna be pretty careful who he calls a bastard or he's likely to get in a blue and come a gutser.

On a slightly more serious note, the meaning of the word differs from one extreme to the other, depending on context, intonation and level of acquaintance between the two parties, eg:
"Listen here, you bastard" used in the middle of a heated argument, compared to
"How're you going, you old bastard?" used as a greeting to an old friend.

Hooroo,
Marty


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surprised to find that "bastard" is a term of endearment.

It is so not only in Australia. To some extent - and under similar conditions to those described by Marty - it is in use in UK as well. Even when not used as a positive term of endearment, it is frequently used here in a non-perjorative way as an alternative term for "person."


#6573 10/01/2000 6:18 PM
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To Bridget and other Sydney and Australian taxpayers

Just thought I'd say thanks for a wonderful Olympics. I watched the closing ceremony this morning and realised how much you guys spent on the whole thing (I hope all the sponsorship worked out OK) - I loved the fireworks - quite spectacular and was glad to see prawns made it onto the track.

We all loved Cathy Freeman's wonderful win in the 400m and our 11 gold medals were 10 more than we managed in Atlanta!

Ta


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>Here in the US, we are being treated to a lot of "feature" coverage of Australia in the run-up to the Olympics.

While this is a little off topic, I was a bit surprised to read that prostitution is legal in Sydney if not throughout the rest of Australia. Someone sent me a list of humorous ad slogans for these Sydney brothels, presented in its entirety below.


The Top 13 Advertising Slogans for Australian Brothels


[ The Top 5 List www.topfive.com ]
[ Copyright 2000 by Chris White ]


13> Catch Olympic Fever -- And Hepatitis!

12> The Best Down Under Down Under!

11> Just Do Us

10> Performance Enhancing Drugs Welcome

9> The Most Fun You Can Have in the Bush!

8> You're already halfway around the world -- let us finish
the job.

7> Didgeri-Do Me!

6> Ready for a REAL Floor Exercise?

5> Don't worry about using protection -- dingos eat all
of our babies!

4> Throw Another Barbie on Your shrimp!

3> G'd Lay, Mate!

2> Serious Yahoo!


and Topfive.com's Number 1 Advertising
Slogan for Australian Brothels...


1> You've got the Joey. We've got the pouches.




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excellent!! Hooorah for the gutter


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Hooorah for the gutter

Biog alert! Can't find Hooorah


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Biog alert! Can't find Hooorah

You won't find her. She rarely emerges from the gutter for long enough to write a biog. She is often to be found with her friend Henry.


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often to be found with her friend Henry

Lovely! Can anyone refresh my memory of an old comic monologue about a drunk falling in the gutter with a sleeping pig, that ended something like this:

"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses"
And with that the pig got up and slowly walked away!



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I was going to copy and paste, but with three versions (only one of which I recognise) and other pieces besides, I thought you might prefer the whole page...

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/7484/q-misc1.htm


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>prostitution is legal in Sydney if not throughout the rest of Australia<

according to the papers here, they had to ship prostitutes in from 'as far away as Perth' to satisfy Olympian demand.

BTW, those of us not Australian but paying Australian taxes to support Australian gold medals at $40m a pop are delighted that the (first batch of) Olympics are over and that 'News and Sport' is no longer tautologous....

(It's not that I hate the great God Sport, but I prefer a pantheon to monotheism...)


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the whole page...

Thanks Bridget - what a treasure trove of porcine pleasures!
Which reminds me of a feeble attempt to eat in vegetarian mode only - tis always the smell of crisping bacon that undoes:

To err is human; to rasher, divine!


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>You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses

Which reminds me of, for some strange reason:
It wasn't the cough that carried him off
but the coffin they carried him off in


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struth, stone the bloody crows, no self respecting ocker would ever throw a shrimp on the barbie. he might chuck a prawn on and down a few cold tinnies with his mates but calling prawns shrimp is like calling egg and bacon pie quiche, definetly not kosher over here.


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>calling egg and bacon pie quiche

As in "real men don't eat ..."?


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>>You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses

Which reminds me of, for some strange reason:
It wasn't the cough that carried him off
but the coffin they carried him off in<


...Jo, are we in a loop? Didn't I post that cough thing somethread else recently? (or maybe I just thought I did...)


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real men don't eat

... they only fad away?

G'day, lapsus. (HAH - got there first, Jackie )

By the way, is 46 married male:
a. I'm 46, married, male
b. I have been marrried 46 times, still male
c. I'm 46, and married to a male
d. I've been married 46 times to a male?
I know you do things differently down under, so do tell!


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HAH - got there first, Jackie

No, you didn't, Honey! Go figure!


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Go figure!

Yep, I'll take my hat off to Mr B. I hadn't seen that post, then, though


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Yep, I'll take my hat off to Mr B. I hadn't seen that post, then, though

I hadn't, either. I meant me. Go figure. (Hah yourself!)


#6590 10/06/2000 12:48 PM
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can't find Hooorah

I was just depleting the o-zone


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egg and bacon pie quiche, definetly not kosher over here.


So, why should it be kosher over there? it isn't kosher any where else, already.


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>Didn't I post that cough thing somethread else recently?

Yes Bridget, you are quite right I've just searched and found it in Q&A under "Death Obessesed" , worryingly, only late last month. Which probably accounts for my comment "for some strange reason". I remember it as an old Morecambe and Wise joke and it must have been whizzing round my head since you reminded me of it. Perhaps I can lay it to rest now, reassured that it has not been forgotten by the world!


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>'News and Sport' is no longer tautologous....

I think we've been quite lucky here. We just had the news when we woke up, then an early evening 7-8pm programme which covered the main highlights. Showing our gold medal win usually takes up about ten minutes of the Olympics, so it was quite good this year to be able to fill up around an hour of airtime! I can imagine what it must have been like day in, day out.

By the way, I met a man who told us that his brother was in charge of getting the Olympic flame up to the top of the stadium (here's a comment for the boys - he needed a quick trip to the underwear shop afterwards), apparently the reason it didn't work was that so many people "phoned home" on their mobiles, just as the torch was lit, that the radio wave activity interrupted the signal to the torch mechanism and they had to physically move the whole thing on to manual overdrive. ... That was his story, anyway....

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>I was going to copy and paste, but with three versions (only one of which I recognise) and other pieces besides, I thought you might prefer the whole page...

Reminds me of the story of the fellow who came home a bit tipsy. OK, not a bit tipsy, a whole LOT tipsy. He staggered into the barn and very carefully took off all his clothes before lying down in the sty with the huge sow. A couple of minutes later, he hiccups and says, "Maw, we've been married nigh onto 26 years now, and this is the first time I ever noticed you had two rows of buttons on your nightgown."



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>according to the papers here, they had to ship prostitutes in from 'as far away as Perth'

Can't get much farther, can you??

Who wath holding the Perth thrings?




TEd
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