Slang
Published in 1943 and given to every American serviceman heading Down Under to help with the war effort, the US War Department’s A Pocket Guide To Australia can be now be read in a different light.
Almost 70 years on, the Pocket Guide appears to be a pretty accurate description of who we were. It may be quaint, but it’s a time capsule that says much about how we have changed as a people in outlook, ethnic composition, custom and language.
It tells of a mad gambling, umpire-hating people, who have strange ways of speaking, putting an ‘i’ where the ‘a’ should be. The booklet’s glossary of Australian slang contains words that have long since passed from our everyday usage.
Continue reading "Back when the barstuds boiled their bloody billies" »
Dear Mr Obama,
Thanks heaps for your beaut speech to Parliament this week, in which you used heaps of Australian idioms and that. It was beaut.
Our prime minister looked at you like she dead set wanted to pash you, and our Opposition leader said something about being a fellow English speaker, which is a bloody riot, because seriously mate, have you heard us?
Anyway, as you’ll see if you go to any twenty-firsts or footy dinners while you’re here, we tend to do this right-of-reply dealio whenever anyone dings on a glass and makes a speech, so I thought I’d respond and stuff. Sweet as?
Continue reading "Oi Barry! Leave the money on the fridge, would ya?" »
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Antoinette Bernier's cheap discount says:
worthless currency -> 10mio gold isnt sufficient to obtain even 10grams of bread -> you who are already poor are while on an even worse situation Read more »
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Australians are often proud of our relaxed, easy-going, “she’ll be right” ethos.
In fact nothing could be farther from the truth.
Most of the time she will not be right and on the rare occasions that she is right it’s only because someone more industrious – say a Scandanavian for example – has gotten off their arse and done something.
Continue reading "On second thoughts, she probably won’t be alright" »
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Edgar says:
She’s in the wrong job – She sluhod be a traffic warden.Who would argue with her and she gets a little moped and uniform. Read more »
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mary wide bay says:
Dear friend Adrian, did you consider that you may be exposing yourself as a bit of an idiot and a fool for not ‘getting’ the article? Read more »
A few years ago, I worked in a co-working space called Silicon Beach House - it was our play on Silicon Valley - and everyone there was either a developer, a web designer, or running a web start-up. It was a little harem of geeks. And then there was me.
My original MySpace page (yes!) is evidence that I really had no idea what I was doing back then. I still use it in presentations to show people what NOT to do on the web. I am also yet to live down the day I replaced the batteries on my mouse with rechargeable ones and had everyone in the office spend a good 20 minutes giving me tech support, before I sheepishly made the discovery.
It may have happened two years ago, but when I asked my Twitter followers the other day if they had any idea why my second screen wasn’t working, someone still suggested I check the batteries.
Continue reading "How to get along with geeks: A seven-point guide" »
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My wife and i got very more than happy when Raymond could finish up his researching out of the ideas he had from your own web pages. It’s not at all simplistic to simply possibly be offering hints that many some people may have been selling. And we see we… Read more »
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h says:
I think the most important thing is this: if you have never shown geeks any respect, why the @!#^ would you expect them to respect you? I think geeks are still the punchbags of the mainstream media though. I don’t think the mainstream wants to be in with the geeks,… Read more »
Bondi’s finally done it. The powers that be that run Australia’s most famous beach have put up the metaphorical “closed for business” sign and jacked up parking fees to deter the Westies.
(View The Punch - Poser suburbs of Australia in a larger map)
The local council is not even pretending there’s another good reason for the latest fee hike to $5 an hour, with Waverly Mayor Sally Betts saying she wants to “protect residents from visitors.”
“We don’t want people from western Sydney coming here and parking - we want them to take public transport. But I don’t think the 50c is a disincentive,” Ms Betts told yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph.
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Ron says:
I drive through Northcote regularly and the council have made interesting changes to the High St. road with the new raised tram stops. They have made it easier to drive into the pavement tables and the cafe Latti drinking Bogons. They have made ramps which enter conveniently into table regions… Read more »
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Clara says:
I’m from Byron Bay and it definitely deserves to be on the list. So many Greens voters who don’t even know any policy details of the party… But there is still a huge marijuana presence, still eccentrics and plenty of poorer people here too - they just live off Centrelink.… Read more »
The people of Frankston, Victoria, deserve full marks for enterprise. But they’ve damaged their bogan credentials by becoming the latest mulletted suburb to jump on the I-Heart-New York-style merchandising bandwagon, with the suburb’s GDP ballooning to several thousand dollars with the sale of I Love Frankston t-shirts, stubbie holders and prophylactics.
The Herald-Sun chronicled the marketing push last week, with residents of “Franga”, “Franghanistan” and “Funky Town” as Frankston is also known hailing the move as a sign their city was on the improve.
It’s the kind of upwardy-mobile stuff which appalls committed westies such as bricklayer Todd Farrawell, from St Marys in Sydney’s West, who went public last month to bemoan the aspirationists who were getting all giggly about the “new buzz” out west.
Continue reading "Frankston not in the hunt for Australia’s top bogan suburb" »
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It may seem a little odd to some but I am a snob when it comes describing those who are generally referred to as bogans – where I’m from the correct term is booner. So being from Canberra it will always be booner and I rarely make allowances those who may not know what I’m talking about.
This may seem ridiculous but it does makes sense: calling someone a bogan (or booner) is after-all an inherently snobbish exercise in differentiating from others you consider yourself to be better than in some way, so you may as well do it properly.
Another reason for objecting to the term is its ubiquitous use in Australia at the moment is slowly strangling other regionalisms that at least gave a certain colour and flair to our condescension.
Continue reading "The lost tribes of bogan: booners, westies and bevans" »
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rob says:
i grew up in brissie and was a bevin but before we where bevins we were called meatheads on the north side of brisbane in the 70;s bogan and westy was a southen thing rob Read more »
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Ian says:
I have sometimes speculated that the term Bevan originates in a time wjhen Brisbane’s west (and Ipswich) had a high proportion of Welsh migrants. Bevin Boys might also be related given the number of coal mines in Ipswich. I too could be talking out of my arse. Read more »
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