A lesson in Aussie English

So here in Australia right now we are celebrating Australia Day. This is a day that is steeped in controversial history, and the current topic of a hot fight around the country as some argue to change its name, others fight to change the date of this celebration, and some say we can do away with it altogether. But I'm not here to talk about any of that today. While Australia's history is rich with colourful (and sometimes shameful) stories I would gladly talk about another day, today I am here to give you guys a lesson in linguistics. Aussie linguistics to be exact.

After my Fly on the Wall post on Friday where I wrote about Miss K wanting a glass of cordial, a lot of my American friends were notably confused about what cordial is. This comes up occasionally, and this time I forgot to include a translation for those of you who don't call Australia home. So today I have decided to give you a list of some of the words you may hear come out of the words of a typical Aussie person, and exactly what they mean. Please note the words G'day mate will not appear on this list, mainly because it's been covered to death elsewhere.

Hopefully this post will help you guys understand exactly what the hell I'm talking about when I write stuff down here. It should also help you stand out less as a tourist if you decide to visit our fine country, because if you don't see what you think is a popular word or phrase here (like crikey, or put another shrimp on the barbie) it means we don't use it, so you shouldn't too unless you want to look like an idiot.

Arvo - Afternoon. This is just a classic example of Aussies taking words that have too many syllables and contracting them.
Bench - Counter top or kitchen counter. These things take too long to say so of course we're going to go with the shorter word people. If someone asks you to put something on the bench, please put it on the closest counter-like surface you can find. If you put it somewhere we plan on sitting later you will get weird looks. The only time we call a chair a bench is if it is in a park, and then we call it a park bench.
Bikkie - biscuit/cookie. We call all biscuits and cookies bikkies, there is no stuffing around with checking if they are chewy or crunchy before we name it around here.
Bloke - Man. We usually use the word bloke in complimentary situations, like "he's a good bloke".
Blowies - blowfly. If someone walks in complaining about "those bloody blowies" this usually just means it is summer and the flies are out in force. Just smile sympathetically and offer them some fly spray.
Boot - Trunk of a car.
Brekkie - Breakfast.
Bottle-o - A bottle shop, or a drive through alcohol store. Another example of our unwillingness to use full words.
Bundy and coke - A classic alcoholic beverage (which I can't stand) of rum and coke. Bundaberg is just the local brand of dark rum. It is brewed in Bundaberg, Queensland.
Chuck a sickie - To take a sick day off work.
Chuck a uey - To make a u-turn
Ciggies - Cigarettes
Cordial - A sweet syrup concentrate you add to water to make it taste less like crap and more like sugar. The best brand is Cottees, no matter what anyone tells you. I know this one is really foreign to Americans, and the closest you guys have is Kool Aid, which is totally different.
Dickhead - A derogatory but not incredibly offensive way of calling someone an idiot. Dickhead is a pretty tame curse down here, but no one is safe from being called one, including the Prime Minister.
Footy - Australian rules football. This is different to English football or American football. What you guys call football we call soccer, because we found a better use for the word football.

Heaps - A lot. I didn't realise this was an Australian thing until I started doing research for this article, but apparently no one else says heaps when they mean an excess of something. A classic example of this will be if someone says "thanks heaps", this just means thanks a lot.

Howyagoin - How are you going? This is just one of those times where our habit of running our words together has created a new word out of three existing words. If you try to say howyagoin like the locals do, we will laugh at you, but just because no one can replicate our accent as lazily as we do, so don't feel bad.
Goon sack - Cask of wine. These are a cheap way to get drunk for young Australians everywhere.
Maccas - McDonalds (Side note, that is actually what the stores are called in Australia now, so if you see the golden arches next to a sign that says Maccas, don't think we've just ripped off the logo and made our own restaurant, it is still a McDonalds, we're just too lazy to say the full name.)
Milk bar - Convenience store/corner store. These aren't as common as they were in my youth, and are slowly being replaced by independent grocers, but you can still see them in rural areas. They are more expensive places to shop than supermarkets, so we only ever go there when we are desperate.
Mozzies - Mosquitoes. These are the bane of every Australian in summer, the same as blow flies.
Nah, yeah - This means you are wrong, and I am right. Nah, yeah is a very gentle way to say your argument is moot and I refuse to change my mind right now. There are stronger ways, but considering this is still a family friendly blog I probably won't mention them here.
No worries - This can mean no problem or it's all good, or yes I will follow through with your request, since you asked so nicely.
Petrol - The fuel we put in our car. Some cars run on LPG gas or diesel, but the most common fuel for now is unleaded petrol or ethanol petrol.
Petrol station - The place where we buy fuel for our car. All three kinds of fuel are sold at petrol stations, but we just call them petrol stations.
Rego - Car registration.
See you later - This just means goodbye. Apparently this one confuses Americans because they think we mean we'll be back, but we just don't like the permanence of goodbye, so we say see you later to keep the possibilities open.
Servo - Another word for gas station. Again we're lazy, so if someone says they're going to duck to the servo, they are just going to put fuel in their car (or buy an over priced pack of cigarettes)
Smoko - Cigarette break.
Stubby holder - A foam insulator for a bottle of beer. We don't just use stubby holders for beer though, I know I'm at a nice house if they offer me a stubby holder for my can of coke. It's called a stubby holder though, because once upon a time (and probably still for some people) bottles of beer were called stubbies. This is different from cans of beer which were called tinnies, but you could put a tinny in a stubby holder. A tinny these days is an aluminium boat.
Sunnies - Sunglasses.
Thongs - Flip flops. If we start talking about thongs, look at the feet and not the butt. If we mean the underwear we call that a g-string (or a g-banger if the person is weird).
Trakky daks/trakkies - Sweatsuit pants. These are one of the main staples of my wardrobe, but that's because I rarely leave the house except to go to the supermarket, so who do I need to dress up for?
Yeah, nah - I know this just sounds like I'm messing with you right now, but yeah, nah is different to nah, yeah. This means I see what you mean, but I disagree with you, or it could also mean I agree with what you are saying, but the situation as a whole is ridiculous. I know those two meanings are totally opposite to each other, so it is important that you listen to the rest of the sentence to understand which one they mean.

So this is by no means not a complete list, there are plenty more words out there, some which are unique to certain states, and others that are only said by people younger or older than I am. If anyone wants to add to the list, please leave them in the comments below. And to all my Aussie friends, enjoy your barbies, or your trip to the beach, or sitting at home listening to the Triple J Hottest 100, but most of all, enjoy the day off (unless you work for a hospital, the police, the supermarkets, or anyone else sacrilegious enough to make people work on Australia Day.

A man hater? Me?

So last month, Miss K's dad accused me of being a man hater. He told me he didn't want his daughter raised in a home where men were evil. He did this because I had spent several weeks trying to instill in him just a tiny sense of what his role as Miss K's dad is. I then got drunk and admitted several things which I have never told him in the five years that we've known each other, but that's another story entirely. But the culmination of all my actions, instead of imbuing in him a feeling of importance when it came to his role in Miss K's life instead made him see me as a man hating charlatan. So I had to sit back and ask myself, am I a man hater?

I'll admit, my relationship with men haven't been stellar over the years. For 30 years now, I've had pretty poor luck when it comes to the males in my life. As I've admitted in the past, my relationship with my dad was always terrible. He couldn't cope with me when I was growing up because I was epileptic. That was just too much for him to deal with, so he ignored me. That lack of a relationship with my dad affected me deeply, and still does to this day. Most of my boyfriends have been manifestations of dad, in some way or another. Some have his temper, others have his ingenuity, and total lack of ability to finish a project. All were manipulative. I can safely say none of them smacked me around, but if I'd continued down the same path, who's to say that wouldn't have happened one day?

Once I became pregnant, I realised I couldn't keep making terrible choices in men anymore, because someone more important than me was now watching my every step with interest. And it was my job to make sure she never makes the same mistakes I do. But it's not just my job to mold this little girl, it's also her father's. The first relationship with a male that any child ever has is their father. For fathers, this means you need to teach your girls what they should expect from their men, and you need to teach your sons how to be the men that women will want. Given how much my relationship with my dad has shaped me, I need to know that Miss K is being raised by a man who will teach her that she deserves to be respected by men, she deserves to be treated as an equal, not a trophy, and most certainly not only as a sex toy.

For the most part, I'm not worried, for now. Miss K's dad idolizes her, and in return Miss K loves her dad. For 4 years now he has fought long and hard to make sure he has a relationship with his daughter, and one day I will make sure she knows how hard he fought. Especially since every day at work I see the dads who won't fight. Who give up at the first stumbling block the mother throws at them, and I can't help but see them as weak for giving up. (To be fair, I try my hardest not to throw stumbling blocks at Miss K's dad, so I've never seen exactly what his breaking point is. For all I know it could be incredibly easy to get him to give up, but I'm not willing to find out.)

But it's not just Miss K's dad who I turn to for help in raising my child. We only see him once every two weeks, and that's too long for a little girl to go without positive male role models. Luckily for me, I am surrounded by men who love my daughter dearly, and would move heaven and earth for her. My big sister's husband has become a surrogate father for Miss K, especially since she spends three afternoons a week at his house while I'm at work. To watch those two play together warms my heart greatly. He can match her rough and tumble style of playing perfectly, and he always has her roaring with laughter. The adoration those two have for each other is so easy to see by the way their faces light up when they see each other. She gets just as excited to see him at the end of the day as his own kids do.

Then there's my little brother, who is just as devoted to Miss K, and another man she adores. He gets her quirky sense of humor, and he'll do anything to make her laugh. Then there's my best friend, who I've known for years and years now. He's a single dad with a daughter of his own, and I used to watch him interact with his little girl during his access visits, so I never had any hesitation in making him a part of Miss K's life, and she holds a special place in his heart too. Then there's my baby brother and his partner, both who can only visit from Melbourne occasionally, but when they do it's always a huge occasion for Miss K. There's also my own dad, who loves babies above everything else, so the little ones in our family always get special treatment. Dad knows Miss K desperately wants a pink car, so when we went to visit him at the car yard he works at last week, he made a special point to take us down the lot to a tiny pink car they have for sale, just so Miss K could have a play with it. My baby sister Kim's boyfriend is the blokiest guy I know, yet even he can't resist Miss K's charm, so anytime he and Kim come to visit she drags him off to play with her. It's adorable to watch this taciturn macho guy acting so awkward and timid in the presence of a 4 year old hell-cat.

After looking at all of this evidence, I've had to surmise that I cannot be a man hater. If I was, I wouldn't let any of these men have any kind of meaningful relationship with my daughter. I certainly wouldn't see any of them with the sense of reverence I do when I watch them play with Miss K. And I wouldn't recognize how important all of them are to Miss K and in turn to me. It takes a village to raise a child, and surrounded by the village that is my friends and family, I know that Miss K is well taken care of, and is learning to respect herself, love herself, and expect others to treat her in a certain way. And at the end of the day, that's all I can ask for. I am however a terrible drunk, so the lesson here is don't drunk dial your exes. It may cause you to have to do some horrible soul searching.

Peace out peeps.

Flashback Friday drunken shenanigans

Well it's Friday again, and you lovely readers know what that means don't you?? It means another Flashback Friday, where I go through the vault of all my oooold photos and find some to share with you. For anyone who wants to see my first Flashback Friday, please see here.

So today I'm not going back as far as I did last time, this time I'm going back about 5 years ago to when I was still young and carefree and Miss K was not even a gleam in my eye. They were days filled with nothing more concerning than whether to have pizza for tea again or walk across the road to KFC for dinner. And for a good time my little sister Nat would come over for a night of heavy drinking, and for some reason, photography.

 

That's right, there is physical evidence of us at our absolute worst.

Now sadly because of the large amounts of alcohol involved in these evenings, I don't have a lot of stories to tell, mainly because everything about that period is so very fuzzy. I know there was one night where Nat chased me out of the house with a tube of toothpaste in her hand trying to use it on me as make up, but the chase stopped when I opened the gate on her foot and removed part of her toe nail. 

 

I was too cool for hair moustaches, I wanted a beard.

I had a Playstation at the time, so we'd spend a lot of time playing Singstar, or Guitar Hero, there would be lots of laughing and absolute mayhem. 

 

We look like a pair of Hell raisers don't we?

If we were feeling girly we'd give each other drunken make overs, which went about as well as you'd expect them to go. Occasionally I'd have a boyfriend and he'd be invited into the fold for the evening, and then we'd drink him under the table. I remember one guy, (who I'm still good friends with, and he is a seasoned drinker from way back) passed out on the couch after a quickfire Family Guy drinking game, leaving us to continue our party alone. Given that every other time I've drank with this guy he is able to keep drinking well after I'm finished I was always proud of that night. (Is that a bad thing?) 

They are nights that I will always look back on with great fondness, and just a touch of regret that I've grown up so much in the past few years that I probably won't ever have a repeat of them again. Of course Miss K will never know exactly how well I used to handle my drink, and I'll never look at her drinking sessions in the same way that I saw mine, but I can say with great certainty that those were the good old days.

Well that's my flashback for this week, if you would like to see the rest of the participants, or you want to add your own flashback to the website, you can do so here.

To wine or to whine

So what do you get when you mix one bored person, a glass of wine and a computer? A blog post!! I'll probably regret this tomorrow morning when my wine buzz has worn off and I have to face the horror that is me when tipsy, but right now, regret be damned, I have wine and a keyboard and I know how to use them both. (not at the same time though, that's how you break electrical items. Learn that one the hard way.) Thisiswhathappenswhenidontusemyspacebar. See?? this is going to be fun.

Now I have had a quick look at my posts this week, and a lot of them were so very overly sweet, so I apologise to any of my regular readers who have come away from my website with diabetes this week. In order to regain some sense of non-sentimentality, allow me to present you with a Spiderman meme.

Urge to vomit rainbows shrinking. 

For anyone who doesn't know what a Spiderman meme is, by all means, Google it and prepare to laugh your butt off. I discovered them a few weeks, and now I annoy all of my family with these pictures clogging up their Facebook news feeds any chance I get. 

I don't actually get to drink alcohol much these days now that I'm a mum, there is too much pain in a hangover once you've got children, and they very rarely are sympathetic to the end result of your overindulgences, so it's easier to stay sober these days. But once upon a time I could drink a sailor under the table. (Actually I couldn't but I had a friend who once drank someone from the Navy under the table. She was able to match him shot for shot of Vodka, and keep drinking once he had admitted defeat. Is it sad that she was my hero?) The last time I drank to real excess was about 4 years ago now, and I was following an English girl and her American boyfriend around Melbourne for an evening. I managed to drink eleven beers that evening. I also played with a strange man's dreadlocks and watched my friends win $3,000 on the roulette table. Unfortunately the next morning I realised I can't drink the way I used to when I was 18, as the hangover was absolutely monstrous. Since then I've had to watch my partying days drift away from me until they were a small dot in my past, and I now feel really naughty having a glass of wine on a weekday. 

Well my lovely readers, thank you for helping me relive my wild and reckless days and sharing in my buzz, but now, my glass is empty and given that these days I'm a responsible mum *yawn* I'm going to pour myself a glass of Coke and go watch some trashy TV. Stay awesome, and remember the wise words of Benjamin Franklin: In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.