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#1794 05/09/00 07:03 AM
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jmh Offline
Pooh-Bah
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miwionnaire - we've got a few of those too, I didn't realise that it was South Australian, I like to collect accents.

> "shtreet" for "street" or, worse, "Aushtraya" (3 syllables)for "Australia" (4 syllables)

I sound a bit the same after too many tinnies (spelling?)
(could progress to Ashtray-a over time (or is Austria already pronnounced that way?)





#1795 05/09/00 02:28 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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I stumbled across this whilst cleaning out my mailbox; it relates to Red Green and duct tape and deconstructionism...
<g>

Tonight, in the Handyman's corner, Red showed us how to fix a toaster (he
sprayed WD-40 into it in massive quantities) and how to install air
conditioning in the van (it was a household window AC that he found in
front of someone's house - he first made a step-up transformer out of a
tire rim and then duct-taped the AC into the passenger side window).
In the "male room" segment he answered a letter which
questioned why there were never any women on the show: "They've all
said no so far."




http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/

#1796 05/09/00 08:07 PM
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jmh Offline
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Is it a bit like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"?
It sounds worth emigrating to Canada for - I'll bear it in mind.
We have "Ground Force" and "Changing Rooms" but they don't sound quite so deep.

<A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/changingrooms/" target="_new">http://www.bbc.co.uk/changingrooms/</A>

<A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml" target="_new">http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml</A>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml

#1797 05/11/00 02:58 PM
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old hand
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On the other hand, does Red Green have the redoubtable Charlie Dimmock on his show? I find it amazing that we have become almost post-PC in the UK, with the lad/ladette culture (as exemplified by FHM, Maxim and the like), that 'Ground Force' has become a mainstream success because of her propensity for going bra-less! (Is there a more euphonious word to refer to this phenomenon of 'sisters doing it for themselves'?)

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#1798 05/11/00 03:34 PM
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'post-PC'ness was inevitable. PC has taken on a very pejorative sense here. This happens to any cause which becomes strident, but stridency is required to gain notice in the press -- it's a vicious circle.

http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/

#1799 05/11/00 06:11 PM
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jmh Offline
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Shanks - Don't we just love her.

We'll have to swap Duct Tape and Ground Force Videos with twu to see which has the most to say to the modern world.

I think my problem in being understood is that I'm pretty "post everything", I think I'm getting more existential than anything - certainly to sleepy to make it as a real ladette - all that drinking and nightclubs!


#1800 05/11/00 09:43 PM
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stranger
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Tinnies is correct. There was a time, during the 70s, when they were also called "tubes" (or to use the phonetic spelling - "choobs"), during the time of a film about an ocker Aussie on safari in London called "The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie" starring Barry Croker (for the UK readers he was the singer of the original "Neighbours" TV show theme!). Not quite the advertisement for our country that I'd endorse, but an exposé of the chundering (under)belly of Aus culture.

BTW the collective noun for a carton of 24, or more recently 30, tinnies is a "slab"; as in "Give us a slab of VB, mate". We also have beer in 375ml (13 oz for the Americans) bottles called stubbies, and 750ml bottles which are referred to as longnecks. I had a friend who could drink a case (12) of longnecks and a half-bottle of Southern Comfort before dinner - an iron constitution (and a spongey liver).



#1801 05/12/00 07:21 AM
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jmh Offline
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Thanks for the info about stubbies, slabs and longnecks - I'll try to drop them into conversation. I have fond memories of many tubes of Fosters.

Isn't there some saying that you can tell what is important about a culture by the number of words that it allocates to certain topics.

The Inuit hold the record for the number of words for snow (soft, slightly wet snow; firm but not quite frozen snow ...)

I wonder what item or concept would claim the record number of words in Australia?


#1802 05/12/00 08:54 AM
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I don't know about Australia but the long list of terms and euphemisms for the male sexual organ says a lot about how male centered the UK is.


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