Questions tagged [australian-english]
Questions about English used in Australia.
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Origin of the expression “turn the card” meaning to pass on an opportunity
I recently dropped the phrase “turn the card” meaning to pass on an opportunity in an answer of a sister site. While not a common expression, I would have expected most people that I converse with in ...
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What is the origin of the Australian slang “pommers” to refer to English people? [duplicate]
What is the origin of the Australian slang “pommers” to refer to English people?
(I’m uncertain as to the spelling)
Why is this the term that is used?
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Is it appropriate to contract text names in a possibly informal sense in an English literature essay? [closed]
I am writing a an essay comparing The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice in English (Australian English style), and to save on word count I wondered if it would be appropriate to refer to them, ...
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Word that sounds like 'stircus,' means 'frenzied/frenetic
There's a word people around me used to use a lot, phonetically it would spell 'stercus' or 'stircus', I think.
It was used in a context meaning excitable, frenzied, frenetic, that kind of thing. Like,...
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Confused about compound nouns vs. adjectives
I was taught that "ball-point pen" = compound noun, but "ball-point" is NOT an adjective because it doesn't pass the primary tests for an adjective (has adjective-making morpheme, ...
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Struggling with participle phrases - adjectival vs adverbial
I'm struggling to identify when a participle phrase is adjectival vs. adverbial.
For example: Turning into the parking lot, the girl could see that lines were already forming.
^ "Turning into the ...
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When is "Northern fall"?
One of my favorite Australian YouTubers keeps saying "Northern" to mean one of "early" or "late", and I don't know which. For example:
The new Pokémon DLC is coming ...
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Meaning of the word "star" in Australian English?
This is "star" in the context of talking about celebrities. My impression from talking to one Australian is that the word has a negative meaning to refer to a "prima donna" -- ...
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Where does “work your ring off” come from?
I’ve heard the expression “work your ring off” my whole life in Australia. It means (as I understand it), to work until exhaustion.
But trying to find the origin of the expression has come up empty; ...
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Informal Australian use of "as" at the end of a sentence
In Australia I have heard expressions such as “It's fully stressful as.” and “All are really skux(?) as.”
What is the meaning or force of this use of “as” at the end of a sentence?
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Usage of "suss out" in Australian English
What's the meaning of "suss out" in Australian English? (Sydney, specifically) How does it compare with "figure out"?
I've heard the verb used slightly differently than normal in a ...
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Origin of Aussie Slang "Stack" and "Stacked it"
Bit of a weird one but I'm wondering where the slang "stack it" in terms of falling over comes from.
Stack:
(Australia, slang) A fall or crash, a prang.
2016 June 19, Tom Williams, “Watch ...
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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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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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Why do Australians and NZers call snacks/lunch 'crib'?
From another question I found out that Australians and New Zealanders call lunch and snacks crib.
On the Macquarie dictionary site, there are several (user-contributed) theories about why, but nothing ...
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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 ...
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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" to mean 'days'?
I lived in Sydney many years ago and the term was not used then. For the past three years or so I've increasingly ...
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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/...
user318469
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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 ...
user318469
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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 ...
