I am surprised that no one has brought up goon yet.
Alcoholism? I’ve heard of an Aussie goon bag on Taskmaster, for sneaking booze into a concert or game
More so how most people outside of aus associate’s it with a more sexual conotation.
Goon bag is just the silver pillow that comes inside a box of wine
At a certain point of the continuum, someone’s writing becomes too much of a pain in the behind to read and interpret their meaning.
This one’s over the line for me. Mark it zero.
From the culture that brought you “I could care less” to indicate that they in fact could in fact, not care less. Genius.
Yeah, I’m no language purist, but most instances of “I could care less” are obviously the opposite of what they mean, and sadly, the phrase has already forged itself in the (American) English lexicon as the opposite of what it means by definition, much like “literally,” “inflammable” and “irregardless.”
I recognize the lines we draw around such things are arbitrary, and I have no right to be angry about the above four any more than anyone has any right to be angry at me for not pronouncing the H in “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” etc.
On the one hand I admire the French for writing down what officially constitutes “French,” but I’m simultaneously irked at the fact that they eradicated the majority of dialects in their borders as an intentional direct result. Or is the unity they brought about worth it to crack those eggs?
I’m sure I would say No if I was one of those eggs.
Let’s fuck this puppy
It means leave.
Huh, I’ve always heard and used “alright, let’s kick this puppy” for “stop procrastinating and do the thing”. We sometimes substitute “shake this baby” but it doesn’t seem to catch on sadly.
I’ve had good luck in my friend group with “club the seal” instead of “break the seal”, but that’s a totally different thing even if the flavor of violence is similar.
In New Zealand, a “dag” is someone who has a good sense of humour and is fun (unlike in Australia where it has cringy connotations)
Explaining to a Yank that calling someone a shitty piece of wool, stuck to a sheep’s arse is a compliment takes some convincing
And then there’s “cunt”…
Explaining to a Yank that calling someone a shitty piece of wool, stuck to a sheep’s arse is a compliment takes some convincing
What word are you referring to here? I don’t know of any American slang that means a shitty piece of wool stuck to a sheep’s ass, *dingleberry" is the closest we got and that’s not species-specific. The only thing I can think of that dag means/has meant in America is a minced oath, for either God or damn (“dagnabbit”, “dag yo”). Add an O on the end and you get a largely archaic racial slur for Italian people or a highly-localized regional sandwich. Didn’t know about the sandwich until I was driving through NE Minneapolis and saw a bar sign advertising “Dagos & Liquor” and briefly had to clutch my pearls until a local explained.
To be fair us yanks don’t know any of the meanings of dag, so we won’t think of it as rude either
In AustraliaIve always associated a dag with someone who dresses very idgaf; Stained trackie dacks, does whatever makes them happy without social concerns, etc. it’s slightly affectionate.
It’s a gentle insult
D’ya like dags?
I love the Aussie (and I presume Kiwi as well) use of the word “cunt.” Y’all have made it so fun 😄
Is it the Aussies that use it as a universal, context-sensitive way to refer to people in general, but usually in a friendly or endearing way?
English isn’t my first language, so I just pick up bits and pieces that I like and make my own dialect. No clue where I pick them up, but they’re mine now.
Yeah it’s us.
You’re a good cunt (good person)
Look here cunt (implied threat of listen to me or I’ll flog you)
The word mate can be used here too
Thanks, cunt <3
Yeh its as adaptable as the English ‘Fuck’.
Happens the other way too. Used to work in IT with Australians and it was hard for them to stifle giggles whenever I was talking about routing packets or routers.
For them, “rooting” means fucking
The one that gets me is Americans using fanny, which means vagina.
Fanny used to be a name as well. It has fallen out of favor in English (I wonder why), but it is still used elsewhere. Its Finnish version, Fanni (pronounced more like “funny” with a longer n-sound), for example, even had a period of rediscovery in 2010-2019, when around thousand girls were named that.
fanny schmelar
In the US, fanny usually means butt, but only square soccer moms and teacher types would use the term. Fanny packs are a real thing though
Fanny packs are a thing but everyone’s worn them in the front since like 1992
Shake your whammy fanny… funky song! funky song!
More common is us saying “bummed out” as a very mild expression of sadness.
Sadly, Australia adopted the stupid 'Murican way of saying the word
Kiwis pronounce it correctly
I live in the US. For me a computer router is pronounced with an “ow” sound. Like if a Brit were “having a row” with someone, but with -ter at the end. However, highway “routes” can be pronounced with that same vowel, or as “root” like a plant root.
Where do you stand on the woodworking tool, a direction and a complete loss in a sport/battle?
e.g. in UK
Router
Woodworking: outer is pronounced outer
Computer: outer is pronounced ooterRoute
Direction: oute is pronounced ootRout
Complete loss in sport/battle: out is pronounced outAre these all “owt” in the US?
In the US, all are “out” but route can be out or oot depending on your mood
The only one of those that is possibly “oot” is route as in directions, in standard American English
Agreed
It’s even worse. In the US Route is pronounced differently depending on part of speech.
We r-out our traffic to r-oot 66
They are two different words, the verb is just pronounced differently from the noun.
Are these all “owt” in the US?
Yes. But I have heard people pronounce route as “root” before.
“root”
It’s a French word, and they don’t say “rowt”
Weird, when I say it, it’s an American word.
Yeah, but yanks think they invented everything
Admittedly, school shootings started with you lot, so there’s that.
You sound angry
Most reserved Eurobro response. “This is how I pronounce a word” WElL aT LEaSt oUR SKeWlS aren’t SHEWTIN’ GAlLERiEs!
Fuck off, yank
Wrong side of the world
From my point of view the firewalls are evil.
Root in french is racine, but we do say routeur designing the electronic box.
Languages evolve. News at 9
especially in places that have no “language” then people with many languages come together and adopt one.
Every place has language, tho 🤔
I’ve had strange looks when I say “crack the shits” or just “crack it”. Take it for granted that everyone uses these terms.
And what would everyone be using these terms to describe?
Pooping? Being tough on crime? Solving a problem? Bullying delinquent children? Or maybe finishing a difficult piece of work.
The phrase “to crack the shits” means when someone gets pushed over the threshold to become angry. Like “I used all the milk and Dad cracked the shits”. Or “None of the students in the class completed their homework so the teacher cracked the shits”. Or “everyone’s going to crack the shits if we don’t get a pay raise this year”.
Ah. So the same as “flipped their shit.”
Yeah that’s a good comparison.
Not sure if it needs to be pointed out… to “nut it out” doesn’t mean what Americans think it means. It means to use your head to come up with a solution. The nut is your head.
#what
This is why I eschew idioms at work.
Do you want to get called by HR? Stop chewing idiots.
“This is why I screw idiots at work”
– Dave of the porn startup “Dumbest Whores of Silicon Valley”
Silicone Valley
You have witnessed the last 10% of the immigrant experience: idioms and cultural quirks.
“iut youre”
And what’s with the fucking number signs? That whole comment is a grammatical nightmare.
That’s how some Tumblr users do things, putting it all in hashtags. Don’t shoot me, I don’t do it, I’m just aware of the practice thanks to my kids.
“fuck me dead” wouldn’t even get a reaction from me. I’m used to off the wall phrases, and as long as I can figure out contextually what is being said, I’ll roll with it.
Yeah I’ve heard this one in the US quite a bit
I use it in the US quite a bit, after picking it up from Ozzy Man on YouTube.
Ozzy Man’s videos are comedy gold. I don’t know if it’s the accent or the random Australian slang, but that shit cracks me up.
I get the double whammy of working with almost entirely ESL speakers in English. So not are they almost unaware of common idioms outside what they’ve picked up from American media, they’re even less aware of Kiwi/Aussie slang. I have to be super careful.
life on the frontier has its perks
“We didnt come here to fuck spiders”
speak for yourself
