Australia Day - Wordsmith.org

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All the morning shows here in USA - Today, Good Morning America etc - told the US that today is Australia Day - and extended good wishes to all those who live at the top of he world!
So Huzzah and Hooray for Australia and particularly to all our Australian friends on the board.

Happy Day, all two of you!

Who exactly are the two Australians, AnnaS? I seem to get them so easily mixed up with those who write from New Zealand backgrounds!

Anyway, Happy Australia Day, do tell us about the celebrations there.

I have a feeling that Zildians sjmaxq and Pfranz Capfka are *not going to be very happy to hear that, WW.

The two very semi-regular Ozzies on Board are stales and Ozhev.

If you didn't spend so much time teaching and grading papers you'd be able to keep up with all this!

I have from my first moment on this board gotten the Australians and the New Zealanders confused, I'll admit! But I will now commit to memory those two pairs. Yes, Stales, I'm pretty sure I could have put you into Australia--and Oz Hev, if I'd thought of it--but somehow I always put Cap there, too, even though he's written about New Zealand. But I won't forget again! And, Max! I'd always thought you were in Australia! Ha! How funny!

But don't feel too bad. It is very difficult to find Virginia's weather on national news, so I do understand how it would seem to be left out--even if left out of your entire nation!

It is very difficult to find Virginia's weather on national news

Not true, WW, it seem every week i am hearing about some storm, or weather front moving in, (its in Virgina, now, moving north and east, and snow/sleet/freezing rain/etc will be starting in NJ at (pick a time) and into NYC an hour later..

i know all about virgina weather (and let me tell you, you guys have some pretty awful stuff as of late-- and you keep sending it north to bother me! (but truth be told, we NY'ers just shuffle it off to boston...)

>And, Max! I'd always thought you were in Australia! Ha! How funny!

Funny, indeed. Any last requests?

Thanks for your wishes, wow (and others). It's always great to have a day off work (for whatever reason, and believe me, we don't need much of an excuse up here).

As a point of interest, there are some in Australia who don't celebrate the day as such, instead it has been called "Invasion Day" ...

Ozhev

Ahem, that would be Hev in these parts!

gotten the Australians and the New Zealanders confused

Wash your mouth out, WW! Do you still not understand Trans-Tasman rivalry?

> there are some in Australia who don't celebrate the day as such, instead it has been called "Invasion Day" ...

Yeahbut�, at least they would get Midnight Oil at their parties! Hope y'all had a good one. At least a better one than Hewitt and Phillipoussis did, at any rate.

I think the rivalry exists because you all told me it exists, but I don't know why it exists.

It would make fascinating reading here should someone write a bit--even at length--about this rivalry. Perhaps not on this thread, but somewhere under Information and Announcements.

And, since we're on the topic of New Zealand and Australia, I just wanted to mention that we have an assistant principal from Wales, but I thought he was from Australia when I first heard him speak. Does this strike you as being strange at all, hev? My incorrect ear, that is, or is there a similarity between the Welsh accent and the Australian? As I've become accustomed to his voice, he doesn't sound Australian anymore, but there is still something there that doesn't sound Irish, Scottish or English--and it sounds somehow more like Australian!

Australia has a day to itself? A whole day? How did that happen? They were sent to the corner with a dunce's cap on 200-odd years ago, and for mine are there still! What's this about them getting their own bloody day?

>Australia has a day to itself? A whole day?. . . What's this about them getting their own bloody day?

Relax, Capfka, the joke's on them. Australia Day is also Auckland Anniversary Day. Wonderfully apt, no?

WW, on a slightly more serious note, my page has links to several sites that discuss Strine, NZ English, and to one page that analyses the differences between them.

the rivalry exists because you all told me it exists

Is this akin to "I think, therefore I am"?

Anyhow, who needs a reason? Is "just for the fun of it" a good enough reason?

we have an assistant principal from Wales, but I thought he was from Australia when I first heard him speak. Does this strike you as being strange at all, hev?

Not particularly strange, WW, although I have also worked with a Welshman, and there's no way I'd have mistaken him for an Aussie. Maverick may be the person with the most opinion (and/or knowledge) about this matter...

Oh, I've heard Maverick speak and he doesn't sound anything like our assistant principal. Maverick's accent--whatever it is and whatever the influences of wherever he's lived--is very, very pure without high-energy vowels, as I'd describe our assistant principal. Mav' isn't Welsh, is he? I thought he was English.

Oh, well. I suppose today is the day I might get this all straight...

Edit: And I think the rivalry exists without knowing or believing it exists simply because the rivalry is spoken of here--but this is the length and breadth of my experience of the rivalry. So I also wonder how much there is to the rivalry. However, it will be so much more fun to read the comments now that I have Cap and Max in one corner and you, hev, and Stales in the other, not that we hear from Stales too much these days though I wish he'd return!

Oh, Mav's a Pom through and through. No Welsh influence there.

WW, is your colleague perhaps from New South Wales, rather than Wales? They are as different as England and New England.

Bingley

No, not from New South Wales. He's simply from Wales. But there is something in his accent that is at least reminiscent of Australian. I will ask him why whenever the ice melts and we get to return to school, not that I'm eager to return. These snow/ice days are professional perks. Maybe his parents were from Australia. Oh, well. I shall ask. I don't suppose Welsh sounds anything at all like Australian English, does it, in any of the vowell sounds?

> very, very pure

Got me to a T

and yeah, 'pure' Pom = born in Africa, raised in Kent, vowel disorder at boarding school, living in Wales...

of which indigenous language I should point out that there are enormous differences of not only accent but also wider regional variants that make parts of the language have some legitimate claim to being separate idiom. When a Welsh person is speaking English, there are several notabe kinds of patterns of accent and also imported lexical features, such as the indefinite interrogative - typical example: "She's a pretty ewe, isn't it!" This is a feature shared with some other Celtic languages including Irish, IIRC.

As for Oz having a whole day to itself, CK, I am reminded of the song by Tom Lehrer (with apologies!):
On Ozzie Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/A-Christmas-Carol-lyrics-Tom-Lehrer/04208E9831D9C63548256A7D0025270C

Funny, indeed. Any last requests?

Yeah... I wanna know if Australia has an America Day.