Hot answers tagged australian-english
35
Aubergine is the British word (originally, I think, from French, but there's no percentage in guessing exactly how), and many British cooks literally would not know what eggplant is. In North America, as others have said, it's the other way about.
Interestingly, there is another vegetable with the same identity problem; what the British call courgettes and ...
14
I'm in the U.S., and I've never heard of the Washing-Up Fairy. Still, using a fairy to explain an unexplained yet serendipitous discovery is not unheard of. When I Googled "a fairy came and cleaned", I found:
my mother would call me the next day, “Oh! a Fairy came and cleaned the house” [in a Yahoo! answer]
“Let's pretend a fairy came and cleaned ...
12
In The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo Baggins was 111 years old and he called it "eleventy-one".
“Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!”
So if the speaker is serious, it would make sense to infer eleventy-seven means 117. But since this is not a normal way of speaking about the number 117, and because people don't ...
10
It's either a real number
110, It is also known as "eleventy", a term made famous by linguist and author J. R. R. Tolkien (Bilbo Baggins celebrates his eleventy-first birthday at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings) and derived from the Old English hund endleofantig. When the word eleventy is used, it may indicate the exact number (110)
Therefore ...
10
In the U.S. the phrase for cleaning the dishes after a meal is to wash the dishes (generically, to wash dishes). The action nominalization is dishwashing (with or without hyphen or space) in either case.
One can say wash up instead of wash the dishes, in context, but wash up in the U.S. is just one more phrasal verb and does not have the specific ...
8
A hen party or hen night specifically refers (in the UK) to what is called a "bachelorette party" in the US - there will be drinking, possibly a stripper, certainly some raucous laughter and dirty jokes. I wouldn't expect it to mean any random party featuring lots of women, nor any of the specialized women-only parties like a baby shower or wedding shower. ...
8
In Canada, I've often heard the phrase "dish-washing fairy". For example, if you visit your parent's place for dinner and your Mom says "Gee it would be really nice if a dish-washing fairy appeared and helped out in the kitchen (hint hint)".
After reading the other answers, it seems like the exact name of this "fairy" varies a bit, but the concept seems ...
8
This is an example of a common tendency towards perverse sense of humor in Australian slang. Several sources attest to this.
“In Australian society, Australian men will often give ironic nicknames. For example, a man with red hair will be given the nickname ‘Blue’ or ‘Bluey’.”¹
“1978 R.H. Conquest, Dusty Distances: ‘I found out later that he was a native ...
7
I'm in a similar boat to you. I don't know that it's really possible to pin down a regional accent. The consensus appears to be that there are three types of accent, broad (that's your country, 'ocker' or Strine), cultivated (like Peter Costello or Geoffrey Rush), and general (that'll be your town accent).
You're more likely to pick up on someone's region ...
7
Just so you know, modern British English doesn't sound much like English would have sounded like when Australia or the US/Canada was colonized. In fact, many Southeastern US accents are closer to British English from the 16-1700s than British English is today. The accent from Tangier Island, Virginia (video) is about as close to British English from the ...
7
Yep. In my own experience, casual use of this sense of Caucasian is just as prevalent in the UK and Australia as in the US. Searching for it in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Mail confirms this with plenty of home-grown examples.
On the other hand, at least some British publications make an effort to use it more precisely: e.g. searching in the ...
7
Searching Google Books Corpus, BNC, COCA, and WebLSE turned up no hits at all, which suggests that this is a very local usage.
Plain old Google with a filter to get rid of the washing-up liquid got a washing-up fairy from University of Warwick in UK though the writer may not be British; GardenGirl who is also UK based; a washing-up fairy competition in UK, ...
7
Whenever the term "official dictionary" is thrown around in Australia, it is usually in reference to the Macquarie dictionary which is considered the country's "national dictionary". The Macquarie was born in 1981 and continues to be based in Sydney, New South Wales. I suspect that the excerpt from the tenth edition of the book cited by the OP has not been ...
6
Being an American, I can safely say that both are used quite often to mean the same thing: angry or irritated. "I was so pissed when he spilled coffee on my new sweater" or "it really pisses me off when she talks down to me" would be understood in America as the speaker being angry. As far as I know, we never use pissed or pissed off to mean intoxicated.
...
6
In New Zealand, that distinction still exists quite strongly. But, like you, I have heard a few people use "pissed" to mean annoyed, but the vast majority of the time, I have only heard it in the sense of being intoxicated.
I wouldn't worry too much about it though. There are so many words in English that mean "drunk" that it wouldn't cause too much to be ...
6
While I have seen it on Aussie job sites, I don't believe that the use of this phrase is endemic to the Antipodes.
Flexible work ethic (normally used in the singular and rarely in the plural) is basically used to indicate that you should be ready to be a "team player" when it comes to working hours, sick leave, etc. If it's busy, you might have to work long ...
6
In my opinion, "dish-washing fairy" is not a set phrase, idiom, etc at all.
In my family growing up in Melbourne in the 1970s the topic of "the fairies", but also "the pixies", we were often told were not going to come along when we weren't looking and do various tasks we were too lazy to do ourselves, including but not limited to washing the dishes.
...
6
The nickname Bluey originated in the 1890s and was used as a nickname throughout World War One to refer to red-haired soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force, especially from New South Wales. During the Second World War, nearly every redhead was nicknamed Bluey, and it spread to civilian life.
The name is ironic, and it seems red-haired men didn't mind ...
4
"I hate when" and "I hate it when" mean the same thing. Hate is a transitive verb in pretty much all scenarios, so in both cases the hate is directed.
The objective of the speaker is to say what he or she hates, not that he or she hates (see how when there is no object the sentence sounds unfinished?).
4
I hate it when he does that.
I hate when he does that.
This is very common (22.8 million Google hits for “I hate when” this morning). It is informal and maybe not completely standard English.
As you note, whether it is present or dropped does not affect the meaning.
The verb hate in this case is still transitive. The phrase when he ...
4
Australian English is the standard language spoken in Australia. Its accents differ from various locations in all states and territories and show a regional and social diversity.
This is no different from accents in US, England etc.
Many immigrants established themselves in various locations, influencing the accent of the English spoken.
4
In this case, the speaker is using "eleventy-seven" as an arbitrary number; the point is, the age-gap between the speakers is large, but he doesn't care. He could have gotten the same effect by using a number much larger or smaller than her actual age:
The fact that I'm forty-five and you're seven means nothing to me.
The fact that I'm forty-five ...
4
According to ABC.net.au,
It turns out that “go he” is an expression that comes from children’s games. In many games (hide and seek or piggy-in-the-middle, or chasings) there’s one child who is “in” or “it” or “he” (depending on where you grew up) – the one who seeks or chases. When used by adults the expression “I’ll go he” is a statement of confidence ...
4
I think this phrase is predominantly restricted to Australia, but with some use found in New Zealand. I've never heard it in British or American English, and wouldn't have understood it without suitable context.
Early use
The earliest example I found in Usenet is from 1994 in rec.motorcycles.dirt by someone in Melbourne, Australia:
The conrod, piston, ...
3
Q: What are the actual origin and history of the name she oak or sheoak?
This was likely named by the British Royal Navy who sailed around and wrote early narratives of Australia. Ships of sail are in need of wood, so they used familiar names to help describe the trees they found. She-oak was named after oak due to their similar timber texture.
The name ...
3
As tchrist has pointed out, the OED definition of she-oak is quite clear.
In particular, it references entry 10.e for she, which says
10.e. with names of plants. Cf. he, 8.b. See also she-oak.
Examples include
1575 Gascoigne Kenelworth Wks. 1910 II. 127 Mary there are two kinds of Holly, that is to say, he Holly, and she Holly.
1585 Higins Junius' ...
3
The Oxford English Dictionary entry for she-oak, n. says:
Forms: α. 17– she-oak, 18 sheoak; β. 18 shea-oak; γ. quasi-native name 18 sheac(k, shia(c)k, sheak.
Etymology: See she pron. Compounds 2e; compare he-oak , he pron. 8b.
There is no foundation for the allegation that the word is a corruption of an Australian Aboriginal or Tasmanian ...
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