Unutterably Silly Aussie terms: What do you think they mean?

[Reyben]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

ok, i'm game. prepare to snicker mercilessly, sherman.

Sunnies, sunglasses
boardies, those silly shorts you wear on surfboards ?
toasty, ah... toast ?
brickie, no idea. unless it actually means "brick".
sparky, cigarette lighter ? or sparkplugs.
pollie, a parrot.
bluey, next to the fishy.
barbie, barbecue ! thank you, crocodile dundee.
brekkie, breakfast.
Brizzie, ... ?
bushie, probably not "the bush", right ? that would be too easy.
telly, television.
chewie, chewing gum ?
choccie, chocolate ! (it's international).
Chrissie, christmas
cockie, cockatoo. i'm positive.
coldie, a beer. i should probably put "beer" for any word i don't know, actually.
cozzie, a beer ?
divvy van, a beer... van ?
dunny, duvet
durry, damned, i'm pretty sure i knew this one. but i forget. ah, a parka ? pff. no, that can't be it, what use would an australian have for a parka ?
exy, ex-boyfriend. right ?
footy, football
grundies, now you're just making stuff up.
undies, underpants (to be worn on head).
lippie, lip balm
middy, beer ?
oldies, ...but goodies ?
pokies, ...beer ?
postie, postman
pozzy, seriously, you are making these up right ?
prezzie, present
rellie, umbrella. (pff ! like you know what *that* is. parasol is more like it.)
rollie, beer ?
scratchy, is this a trick ?
sickie, um, yuck.
sticky, it is a trick, isn't it ?
surfie, surf board ?
tallie, beer, right ? in a bottle ?
tinny, a tin of conserves ?
tinny, ...another tin of conserves ?
trackies, track suit ?
uggies, those silly boots you wear when the temperature drops below 25° (), as if you even know what "cold weather" is.
uni, university
Vinnie's, that restaurant down the street from your house ?
yewy seriously, quit making this stuff up !

Interesting- Australian slang seems basically composed of taking a word and adding "ie/y" to the end of it.

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by Reyben

Interesting- Australian slang seems basically composed of taking a word and adding "ie/y" to the end of it.

You haven't got a list of all the words ending with o which essentially are peoples names or words that sound wrong or have other meanings if they end in ie/y

For example...

Tommo
Dicko
fisho
servo
arvo
blah blah blah ad infinintum

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Reyben

Interesting- Australian slang seems basically composed of taking a word and adding "ie/y" to the end of it.

If you go back to the original post, you'll see that it also mentions, as SneakySnake does, the penchant for adding "-o". However, the context that this arose from was merely extracting that "ie/y" aspect (which is not just addition, but also often a shortening of the initial word/phrase) of Strine. If you google some "Strine" you will find that although this aspect is a significant part it's not the all of it.

Also, when I originally posted the list, I excluded words I was unfamiliar with, or just would be ever unlikely to use. We've our own regional stuff going on too. Coincidentally, I just found a 35mm slide that my mother-in-law had labelled "kangas", as opposed to "roos".

Cheers,
Marc

[kindlekitten]

now, see, I've actually heard kangas before and would have known what it was! (I know it was gotten rid of because it was too easy!)

[PKFFW]

I've only heard kanga used when referring to "Kanga Bangers"

And I must say....YUM!

Cheers,
PKFFW

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

now, see, I've actually heard kangas before and would have known what it was! (I know it was gotten rid of because it was too easy!)

Kanga goes in the list that only old codgers , and maybe a few tourists use, along with....

Ripper
Beauty
Bonza
Bottler (straight out of the Brisbane Bitter Beer ad - sorry)
Sheila
Crikey
Jumbuck
Tucker bag
Flamin'
Billy(not used for tea anymore except by some old Blackfellas I know) - young peeps use the word Billy for something (shhhh illegal)
Cooee
....... and this list goes on. And then we have to get into the sayings that are more than one word

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

Kanga goes in the list that only old codgers , and maybe a few tourists use, along with....

Ripper
Beauty
Bonza
Bottler (straight out of the Brisbane Bitter Beer ad - sorry)
Sheila
Crikey
Jumbuck
Tucker bag
Flamin'
Billy(not used for tea anymore except by some old Blackfellas I know) - young peeps use the word Billy for something (shhhh illegal)
Cooee
....... and this list goes on. And then we have to get into the sayings that are more than one word

I'd say I still use "ripper" and "beauty" and "bottler" in some circumstances (I always thought "bottler" came from one of my favourite sayings...one I'm pretty sure traces back to the UK: Your blood's worth bottlin'). If we go camping, or when we'd go up to the hut, we'd still use a billy.

Which sends me the way "tadger" did...a lot of this stuff traces back to the old dart. Some are probably not strictly Strine (for starters, rhyming slang goes back that way), and some may be words that stayed here but fell out of use back there, Strine inheriting them. I'm saying this as an excuse to link to World Wide Words (see link above, at "old dart"), which is a favourite website for this type of stuff.

Cheers,
Marc

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

some may be words that stayed here but fell out of use back there

The same is true with many words we think of today (in the UK) as "Americanisms"; they are, in fact, ordinary English words which were commonplace in the 18th century, and which have remained in use in the US, but become obsolete here. A good example is the past participle of the verb "get" - "gotten". We think of it today as "American", but it's simply a grammatical form that we've stopped using in the UK (it occurs frequently in Shakespeare), but which has stayed in use in the US.

(And we still use it in expressions like "illgotten gains").

[TGS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The same is true with many words we think of today (in the UK) as "Americanisms"; they are, in fact, ordinary English words which were commonplace in the 18th century, and which have remained in use in the US, but become obsolete here. A good example is the past participle of the verb "get" - "gotten". We think of it today as "American", but it's simply a grammatical form that we've stopped using in the UK (it occurs frequently in Shakespeare), but which has stayed in use in the US.

(And we still use it in expressions like "illgotten gains").

Also true of a lot of the spellings that the British English grammar police despise - the "...ize" word ending for example is often thought of as a horrible Americanism, but many such spellings pre-date "...ise" spellings, which are thought by many Brits to be "proper".

[bookfanmd]

postie - mailman
brekkie - breakfast
The 2 above are courtesy of watching "Danny Deckchair", a really enjoyable Australian movie.

barbie - grill
tinny - can of beer
telly - TV?

I don't know the rest. It's like a whole other language down there.

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by bookfanmd

postie - mailman
brekkie - breakfast
The 2 above are courtesy of watching "Danny Deckchair", a really enjoyable Australian movie.

barbie - grill
tinny - can of beer
telly - TV?

I don't know the rest. It's like a whole other language down there.

Whaddyah mean down there? You make it sound like we live in ones nether regions.

Anyway some people have an unside down view of the globe.


When you can clearly see that we are "up there"

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

Whaddyah mean down there? You make it sound like we live in ones nether regions.

Anyway some people have an unside down view of the globe.


When you can clearly see that we are "up there"

What planet is this?

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

What planet is this?

Its the real world sonny. Get with the program

[cbarnett]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

Its the real world sonny. Get with the program

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TGS

Also true of a lot of the spellings that the British English grammar police despise - the "...ize" word ending for example is often thought of as a horrible Americanism, but many such spellings pre-date "...ise" spellings, which are thought by many Brits to be "proper".

The Oxford English Dictionary always prefers "-ize" endings to "-ise", although in most cases both can of course be used.