![]() Although it's by no means exclusive to Australia, Aussies use the word a lot. Bloody: The Great Australian Adjective.Bloke: Guy or dude, used identically in Britain and New Zealand. ![]() In Australia, though, occasionally extended to non-cars. Lends itself to the title of the adult animated series Bin Chickens and also used in an episode of Bluey. These birds inhabit parks around Brisbane and Sydney and habitually eat scraps and rubbish. Woodfull turned to the dressing room and roared out, at the top of his voice, "Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?" ![]() The best example to illustrate the nuance of the word comes from a Cricket tour when the English team's captain Douglas Jardine knocked on the door of the Australian dressing room to complain to the Australian captain Bill Woodfull that one of his teammates had called him a bastard. ![]() Considered relatively mild compared to a stronger but just as common Australian word, listed elsewhere on the page ( you'll know it when you find it). The distinction between positive and negative uses must be gleaned from context tone of voice trumps modifying adjectives in this respect, so it may or may not be a good thing for you to be a lucky bastard, a miserable bastard, or even a fucking bastard. An Australian can get away with calling his friends bastards, but if you're not Australian, it's best not to try it. It can be used as an affectionate term of address to one's friends, or as a generic term of abuse and low regard (but without the connotations of illegitimate parenthood). Bastard: A very complicated word in Australian English.American "root for" a team - since root is also on this page as slang for something else, Aussies tend to be quite amused by Americans using "root" to mean "barrack". The term is used in Britain, but to mean "to insult or abuse", which is what an Aussie who barracks for his team is likely to do to the opposition. Barrack: To support, usually in the context of a sports team, most commonly in the west and south of the country with respect to their AFL teams.Confusingly, there are equivalent terms "Back of Beyond" and "the other side of the Black Stump", which refer to different reference locations, and all we know about "Woop Woop" is that it's somewhere in the general vicinity. Back o' Bourke: If you travel beyond (either west or north of) the town of Bourke in northern New South Wales, you are officially in the Outback - the vast, empty, middle of nowhere that characterises most foreigners' conceptions of Australia.The British sometimes use the same expression to refer to The BBC. Aunty: The ABC, Australia's state broadcaster.One of the few to actually make more sense than the regular English phrase "head over heels", since your head is pretty much always over your heels. "He tripped over the cord and fell arse-over-tits". Arse-over-tits: To fall over dramatically, e.g.The grand list of Australia-specific slang terms Others may be similar to British or American slang but will still sound funny to someone unfamiliar with them, or they provide a logical but unexpected twist to existing British or American terms. Part of the problem is that slang tends to change frequently, so many of the items on the list might be considered hopelessly dated, or at the very least not widespread. The following list of Aussie slang is not exhaustive, nor can it hope to be. Australian English owes its uniqueness to many factors: Australia's isolation from other English-speaking nations like Britain and America, the particular mix of settlers and the countries they come from (including the pronounced Cockney and Irish English spoken by the lower-class convicts sent there before the gold rush), and the bizarre and often deadly flora and fauna whose descriptions required native borrowings and linguistic creativity in equal measure. ![]() But they didn't.Īustralia has a unique and dizzying variety of colloquialisms. You'd think such places would develop similar slang. This could describe both America and Australia. Barack Obama, at an Australian state dinner, commenting on the American unfamiliarity with Australian accents and slangĪ country that was first populated by indigenous people with a diverse set of religions, languages, and cultures, who were then shoved aside and colonised by convicts and settlers, with a large British presence until great politicians and leading minds decided independence was a better tack. ![]()
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