Sydney Harbour Bridge

How to speak Australian:  Fosters is not, so the Aussies say, Australian for beer.  On my first visit, the cash-strapped youngsters claimed everyone drank VB (Victoria Bitters.)  Now older and of better means, they prefer microbrews.  So apparently they all have their own opinions just like people in any other country.

To truly speak Australian, talk really fast, run all the words together, and leave off half of each word.  If an American understands a word you said, try harder.  Also add r’s at the end of words where they don’t belong, and leave them off where they do.  Use lots of z’s, especially in names.  Lauren becomes Lozza, Sheri Shezz.

An Aussie once told me that they speak with their mouths, while we speak with our throats.  Aussie, by the way, is pronounced Ozzy.

Other Australian lingo:

Jen tries VB

car park – parking lot or parking garage

trolley – shopping cart

nappy – diaper

whinge – whine

mum – mom

heaps – lots

lollies – candies

chook – chicken

bloke – guy

bottle shop – liquor store

Macca’s – McDonalds

jumper – sweater or sweatshirt

cot – crib

pram – large stroller

capsicum – bell peppers

rissoles (pronounced rizzols)- hamburger patties, eaten without a bun

bangers & mash – sausage & mashed potatoes

op shop (opportunity shop) – thrift store

bubbler (pronounced bubbla) – drinking fountain

bin man – garbage man

Australians in America get quite a big kick out of seeing a Roto-Rooter truck drive by.  Rooting in Australia does NOT mean cheering for your favorite sports team…..

Australians have hen’s night instead of bridal showers.

We have the jackalope, they have kangawallafox and drop bears.

After a tasty meal, an Aussie might make a comment about the beautiful food.  Walking down Main Street, looking in shop windows displaying anything but food, one might say it looks delicious.

The people we visited slowed down a bit and said one word at a time so we could understand them. Asking a random person on the street for directions brought blank stares from us as he might as well have spoken a foreign language since we didn’t understand a single word he said.

On the flip side, some of our common words they don’t like at all.  At least some of them don’t.  When my daughter said we needed to buy some sandwich fixin’s, her Aussie husband went ballistic.  So the next time they came here I just had to pull food packages out of the pantry to show him that said things like “chili fixin’s” or “salad fixin’s.”

I couldn’t find an actual package of anything that said fixin’s on it just now, but I did get the shelf from a display that used to hold salad fixin’s brand croutons.

see you Aussies, fixin’s IS a real word (sort of)