Questions tagged [australian-english]
Questions about English used in Australia.
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More formal way of saying "fighting until the end"
I'm currently working on a history essay and said "Saladin choose to declare a truce with the Crusaders in 1192 instead of fighting until the end."
It gets the point across but I think it's ...
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how to interpret a question with a 'where' in the sentence
I am a bit confused on how to intepret a question like the following which has a where in it. The question is
List all towns where Tom stayed 8 weeks or more outside his home town.
I'm not sure if ...
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What is the origin of "deadly" as "excellent" in Irish and Australian English?
I wonder what the origin of "deadly" as "very good" and "excellent" is in Irish and Australian English. For example, a satisfied hotel guest might say, "The staff ...
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Australian pronunciation of the word "mum" (for mother)
As a native Midwestern U.S. speaker of American English, I had always assumed that the vowel in the word "mum" (meaning "mother") would be pronounced the same as the "u" ...
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Does "special" have a special meaning wrt notebooks in AusE?
A class received some regular and some special notebooks, and altogether there were 80 notebooks. A regular notebook costs 20 cents and a special one 10 cents. How many of each kind of notebook did ...
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Dialect using "woman" instead of "women"?
If you watch this VICE episode, the presenter sounds like a native speaker, but uses "woman" instead of "women" every time (probably over a dozen times in the 10 minute video).
...
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Char a baby sheep?
I was watching a video called "Amnesia day" by Juice Media and I heard this phrase:
Come on straya! Crack a tinnie! Char a baby sheep! Stick a flag on your car! Or on your knob!
I was ...
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Meaning of "summer" and "winter" in Australian English [closed]
What is the meaning of "summer" (and "winter") in modern Australian English? It means cold time, but in June, July and August, or warm time, but in December, January and February?
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Is "peckish" less common in American English than other varieties?
In SuperHolly's video about visiting Australia at around 3:04, Holly mentions coming across the word "peckish" for the first time. As an Australian, I wasn't aware of the word being more ...
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Could anyone ID this accent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_QckQZHa1s (the first person to speak)
I was told it's Australian, but the Australians I met sounded very different.
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Does anyone know if there is a ‘ball-bowl’ merger in Australia?
I live in Australia, and I recently had a moment of confusion when talking with someone who had merged the words ball and bowl. They pronounced it something like /bɔl/. They said fall, small, wall, ...
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How often do you use 'nowadays' vs 'these days' in your dialect?
I would say that in South Africa, nowadays is rather quaint; something that perhaps Boomers and older or second language speakers would use. Unfortunately, I cautioned a student nearly a year ago ...
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Using 'via' properly
I'm an English-learning Japanese student. I want to know if I'm using the word 'via' properly. This is the sentence:
"...by telling Sato how you can meet people even if they live overseas via the ...
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What is the difference between 'Beer' and 'Beers'? Which is correct? [duplicate]
Thank you for coming.
I want to ask you "what is the difference 'Beer' and 'Beers'?"
I had a job creating ads for foreigner.
So, I made this sentence
→"50% discount on All Beer."
However I had ...
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How can one use 'would' and 'could' both, consecutively?
I encountered a sentence in an article. The writer (an Australian) has used both 'could' and 'would' consecutively in a sentence.
The sentence is
But I was determined to make a statement: would ...
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Exactly what does "range" mean in "to range the bride costume"?
In a news article from Australia, a Kmart spokesperson said, "Kmart Australia regrets the decision to range the bride costume."
I checked various dictionaries including OED, but I could not find an ...
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Is "swap" an accepted alternate spelling for "swab" in Australian English?
A client from Australia sent us some documents that pretty consistently use "alcohol swap" to describe disinfecting wipes.
So no, this is not a "what do I use if I don't have gin" type of situation; ...
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Is "crib bag" the Australian equivalent of "carryall" in AmE?
I have seen bags labeled "crib bags" on Australian websites. I never really understand what they are precisely or whether "crib" refers to the material or the shape of the bag.
It seems the bags that ...
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Origin of the saying 'It's a soda'?
We say that something is easy (in Australia at least) by saying that 'it's a soda?' What is the origin of this please? Why soda?
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Are "one" and "won" homophones in Australian English?
My friend and I are both native speakers of Australian English.
He thinks "one" and "won" sound different and feels "a one-liner" sounds wrong and should be "an one-liner". He does think the two ...
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the wording specific to Australia [closed]
Please tell me the wording specific to Australia.
・Carrying on like a pork chop
・Chuck a sickie
etc.
thank you.
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What is the difference between ‘Is it free’ and ‘Is it on the house?’
One of my friends said, ‘Is it on the house?’ in Australia, but some felt a little awkward.
Do Australians not usually use the expression, ‘on the house’?
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Why do U.S. Americans say "a good value" (using indefinite article "a")
Take this example from the Airbnb website: "What would have made this listing a better value?"
This souds absolutely horrible and incorrect to my Australian ears (I would omit the "a"). I've also ...
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What is the history of the Australian slang word "sleeps" (meaning days)?
What is the history of the Australian slang word "sleeps" (meaning days)? I lived in Sydney many years ago and the term was not used then.
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Multiple pronunciations of "where"
I've been an Australian English speaker my whole life but this was pointed out to me recently. Apparently I've been pronouncing "where" differently or incorrectly? Most of the people around me ...
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On the double meaning of evaluation
I know that evaluation can refer to both the process and the result, but when you say something is an evaluation of another thing, like fact is evaluation of claim (forgive the choppiness, the ...
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Australian English: neighbor or neighbour?
Several sites (say, https://www.grammar.com/neighbor_vs._neighbour, https://proofreadmydocument.com.au/writing-tips/differences-between-american-and-australian-english, https://au.answers.yahoo.com/...
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Australian English: developed or developped?
According to https://proofreadmydocument.com.au/writing-tips/spelling-tips-the-doubling-up-rule/ and https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/resource/20/, we should spell the past ...
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Origin of "It's a fair cop"
After coming across the following questions, Origin of “All right, what's all this, then?!” and Origin of “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”, my curiosity was piqued to try and discover the ...
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How do you pronounce the word "array" in Australian English?
I am learning accents (differences in pronunciation), and I was wondering how to pronounce the word "array" in Australian English, and how it's pronounced in other variants of the language. Is it AH-...
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What connection (if any) is there in Australian slang between 'dinkum' and 'dink' (meaning a ride on bicycle handlebars)?
In an answer to the recent question, What is the American equivalent of a "backie"? site participant Chappo notes that in Australia the word dink is sometimes used as a noun to mean "a ...
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Can the word "spunk" [AUS] be used to describe women as well as men?
The word spunk is used to describe an attractive man. Can it also be used for a female? This is an Australian English word.
E.g. :
He's not really a spunk. I mean he's nice but...
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Why "idea-R-of" in Australia
I am not native english speaker
English is my 2nd Language
When I moved to Australia I noticed people here adding the letter R in between words that ends with vowel and the other that starts with ...
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Do native speakers of major English varieties actually say "a software" or "softwares"?
So I've looked up the word "software" around, and I've learned that -ware words are uncountable, and there's even a claim at the Wiktionary entry for this word that "a software" or "softwares" are a ...
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Why is it okay for word initial /ɪ/ to sometimes be voiced as a /ə/ but not always?
For example what is the rule that says that,
"Enough" (ɪˈnʌf) can be pronounced as /ənʌf/
But for "Introduce" (ɪntrəˈdjuːs) the /ɪ/ can't be pronounced as a /ə/?
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Help in deconstructing a sentence [closed]
This was a question posed by a friend. I'm myself curious of the answer. I apologize for the explicit content (I left it as is to remove ambiguity). I pretty sure that 'a yuppy fu@k' is a compound ...
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What is the meaning of "I’ll be up you for the rent"?
In this video at 1:43, Ray (the guy on the right), says something like:
"And if I ever hear you having your eyes lifted or something done to your chin I'll be up you for the rent too by the way.&...
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What does the phrase "chuck something in" mean?
I was doing the bilingual subtitling for a video recorded last year, on the first day of same-sex marriage debate in the lower house of Australia. There was a marriage proposal from an MP to his ...
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Idiom: Origin of the phrase "a bit how ya going" to mean questionable or 'not quite right'
In Australia, where I live, it is not uncommon for people to describe something as "a bit 'how ya goin''" to mean that it's a little bit dodgy, or not quite right. An example is
"Hey don't you have ...
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How come Australians refer to Aboriginal citizens as 'Aboriginal peoples', not 'Aboriginal people' [duplicate]
I've noticed in a lot of proceedings that Aboriginal citizens in Australia are referred to as 'Aboriginal peoples', not 'Aboriginal people' - is there any specific reason?
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Metalanguage and Sentence Structure (help!!) [closed]
I got my assessment back on Friday, and my teacher said I need to work on metalanguage and sentence structure. I don't understand what she means. I have looked on the internet for past 20 minutes ...
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What is the UK equivalent of 'murica and 'straya?
There is a pejorative phrase in the United States for country hicks that has recently arisen:
'murica
Implying that that user of the phrase doesn't pronounce their words properly and doesn't ...
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Is saying "But if I try I can't remember" good English?
Is saying "But if I try I can't remember" good English?
I feel like there is something wrong with this sentence (apart from the use of "but" at the start of a sentence - it's a song lyric).
However,...
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Expressions about a phone call and its quality
I was listening to a radio program and there was an interview going on over the phone between the anchor and the listener. But I heard a disturbing sound from the phone call and the anchor said,
"...
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Arcing up: cats or electricity?
In Australian English slang, the expression "to arc up" means "to become upset or angry" (Wikitionary), e.g. "he arced up at his boss after being denied a promised pay rise", or "it was just a joke, ...
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Global socially acceptable way of acknowledging that I'm being a "pedantic w****r"?
I'm Australian and would not hesitate to call myself a "pedantic wanker" in public (because, well... I often am!).
There is a very small chance that someone (most likely elderly or particularly ...
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"'ve" contraction in Canadian and Australian English
I'm wondering if in Australian or Canadian English you can use " 've" before a noun phrase in informal style:
I've a car.
They've a great time.
The question is somewhat related to this one. The ...
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Was Zink ever valid spelling for Zinc?
On the Genealogy & Family History Stack Exchange I asked What might 'pitt Zink' in 1873 South Australian diary mean? and the first answer I received more or less aligns with my thinking that Zink ...
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Is"peanut" is pronounced as "pienut" in Australian English?
This morning on NHK Japanese National TV there was a short feature on an Australian person who is running an English school, teaching language and cooking at the same time.
As a part of the scenario ...
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What are roach motels (the insect trap) called in Australian English?
In Australian English, what are the insect trap known as "roach motels" called? Wiktionary and Wikipedia (also this link) don't mention what it's called in Australian English.