How to Speak Australian

Ute
Originally uploaded by BLP.

First of all, Fosters is not Australian for beer. It's Australian for shit beer (sorry, Paul, I meant to say poop beer, honest). Fosters was at one point a very popular brand, but once it went international it lost its fan base - in part because it "sold out", but mostly because it became a watered down ghost of its former self in order to appease you piss drinking Americans. So now, it's pretty scarce around here, and if you do find it, you're probably somewhere you shouldn't be.

We're all familiar with the stereotpyical Aussie expressions "G'day" and "mate". These are indeed ubiquitous and used with remarkable frequency. A lesser known, but equally common expression is hey-go'n (spoken in one effortless slur) - the Aussie abbreviation for "hey, how's it going". Unfortunately, I'm still using odd turns of phrase like "hey", "hello", and "how are you". People look at me funny.

Other tidbits: In Victoria, a glass of beer is a "pot", not to be confused with a pint, which is still a pint - a pot is a few ounces (or a few dozen ml) less than a pint. Abbreviations are quite common. For example, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne = "The Tan". The neighborhood just south of mine is Prahran - I pleased everyone immensely by trying to pronounce this as it's spelled, not realizing that it's only referred to as "Pran". This can be somewhat problematic, as it's not always self-evident what these abbreviations really mean. Aussies particularly like abbreviating things and adding "ie" to the end - turning something like track pants into "trackies" or hooded sweatshirts into "hoodies." This is part of what makes Aussies so charming - as TSS once said, adding "ie" to anything makes it sound cute. Although I don't find the word "nappies" any more appealing than "diapers". Unfortunately, they blow the whole "ie" thing when it really counts - for example, driving under the influence is referred to as "drink driving". "Drink driving" sounds like a grammatical nightmare, but more importantly, why on Earth would you pass up the opportunity to call it "drinkie driving"?

If you've got kids, you buy a "people mover", and if you're a bad-ass Aussie bloke, you own a shiney "ute" (not to be confused with my wife, Uta). As an aside, the "ute" is essentially a modern day El Camino - yes, they are alive and well in Australia and act as substitutes for pick ups (they're essentially the Ford F-150 of Australia). If you're pissed off, you're "spewing", and if you're throwing up, you're also "spewing". If something's full, it's "chockers". If you want to figure something out, you've got to "suss it out", if you've done well, you'll be warmly rewarded with cheers of "good on ya", and anything bad is just plain "shit".

There's plenty more where that came from, but some of them I haven't figured out yet. . .