In Australia - man they’re funny bastards. And they talk funny too. Not just the accent - no - although in and of itself that is varied and most interesting where the Adelaideans can make the price of something sound like a pogo stick in motion - nine ninety nine is pronounced “noine noineny noine”. Say it fast and on repeat. You’ll get what I mean.
Then there’s the odd expression “dooner” (doona?) which we heard for the first time back in 2015 when we first moved to Adelaide. One of Karen’s workmates was telling her about her new colourful dooner…
“Your what?” Karen was heard to say.
“My dooner… “
Raised eyebrows and a shrug, Karen says, “What’s a dooner?”
“A dooner - y’know. What you put on your bed.”
“What, like a blanket?”
“No, y’know you get covers for them and you sleep under them…”
The penny dropped.
“Ohhhhh…you mean a duvet?”
“Yeah, a dooner….”
A fucking dooner… oh how we laughed.
Couple to that the fact that it took me a while to figure out that my workmates weren’t climbing up on their roofs of a night when they said they were “on” the lounge…
On the lounge? Nope, it was a mystery.
Then I realised that if they call the lounge (the room in which you literally lounge around) a lounge ROOM which is the case then the lounge just might pertain to the furniture…. and, turns out - it does.
The lounge is actually the lounge suite or the settee or a piece of lounge (room) furniture so when they’re “on the lounge” they’re sitting on the sofa or equivalent piece of furniture in the LOUNGE ROOM…
What blew me away though was the bizarre quirk of a nation of abbreviators - garbage collector = garbo / service station = servo / utility vehicle (pick up) = Ute / toasted sandwich = toastie / Murray = Muzz etc suddenly calling a simple old butternut, a butternut-pumpkin… I mean, why? Nobody confuses a butternut for anything else regardless of its broader family ties…
There was also a time back in Adelaide on the car radio we heard the news anchor announcing that there had been a “bingle” on the freeway…
Karen and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was clear from the context that this was local vernacular for a small prang - a fender-bender but bingle kinda captured it beautifully in a word. I use it to this day. Why wouldn’t you?
Karen often refers to dirty, manky things as being “daggy” which derives from the faecal tangled derrière of a sheep yet dag is an affectionate term for a bit of a socially awkward type as well.
It’s complicated.
For example, when you deep dive into the Australian profaniana the C-word is used very commonly by women and men alike here and while generally insulting and pejorative, it’s ironically paradoxical that there is no higher praise from an Australian when you are referred to as a “good cunt.”
I could go on for days about this colourful lingo, suffice to say, I am always amused.
Working on construction sites - well, that’s another language entirely.
Namaste, peeps, onya.
Bye…. I mean, hoo roo…