Happens the other way too. Used to work in IT with Australians and it was hard for them to stifle giggles whenever I was talking about routing packets or routers.
I live in the US. For me a computer router is pronounced with an "ow" sound. Like if a Brit were "having a row" with someone, but with -ter at the end. Changing course ("rerouting") also uses that pronunciation. However, highway "routes" can be pronounced with that same vowel, or as "root" like a plant root.
Is it the Aussies that use it as a universal, context-sensitive way to refer to people in general, but usually in a friendly or endearing way?
English isn't my first language, so I just pick up bits and pieces that I like and make my own dialect. No clue where I pick them up, but they're mine now.
In AustraliaIve always associated a dag with someone who dresses very idgaf; Stained trackie dacks, does whatever makes them happy without social concerns, etc. it’s slightly affectionate.
Explaining to a Yank that calling someone a shitty piece of wool, stuck to a sheep's arse is a compliment takes some convincing
What word are you referring to here? I don't know of any American slang that means a shitty piece of wool stuck to a sheep's ass, *dingleberry" is the closest we got and that's not species-specific. The only thing I can think of that dag means/has meant in America is a minced oath, for either God or damn ("dagnabbit", "dag yo"). Add an O on the end and you get a largely archaic racial slur for Italian people or a highly-localized regional sandwich. Didn't know about the sandwich until I was driving through NE Minneapolis and saw a bar sign advertising "Dagos & Liquor" and briefly had to clutch my pearls until a local explained.
Sure, but if your boss and/or HR finds out, you'll probably get in trouble for it unless your workplace is much cooler about that sort of thing than most 🤷🏻
It's true, though. Flinging a dick in a pond would entail some changes in the laws of physics, tugworm or no 😄
"fuck me dead" wouldn't even get a reaction from me. I'm used to off the wall phrases, and as long as I can figure out contextually what is being said, I'll roll with it.
I happens as a Brit too. Recently I casually used the phrase "use your loaf" around some North Americans. I then had to explain that loaf = loaf of bread = head. They were like "why" and then I had to try to explain the concept of Cockney Rhyming Slang, and then there was a barrage of questions about the origin of Cockney Rhyming Slang and all the other examples. I don't know, I'm not even Cockney!
When I worked in the states, my team bought me a superman flag so I could wave the S-flag whenever I was being sarcastic. Because otherwise they wouldn't spot it.
“Oh, you don’t wanna go to Bugarup,” said Remorse. “Nothing in Bugarup but a bunch of wowsers and pooftahs.”
“’s okay, I like parrots,” mumbled Rincewind, who was just hoping that they would let him go so that he could hold on to the ground again. “Er…what’s Ecksian for going mad with terrified fatigue and collapsing in a boneless heap?”
The men looked at one another.
“Isn’t that ‘snagged as a wombat’s tonker’?”
“No, no, no, that’s when you chuck a twister, isn’t it?” said Clancy.
“What? Strewth, no. Chucking a twister’s when…when you…yeah, it’s when you…yeah, it’s when your nose…Hang on, that’s ‘bend a smartie’…”
“Er—” said Rincewind, clutching his head.
“What? ‘Bend a smartie’ is when your ears get blocked underwater.” Clancy looked uncertain, and then seemed to reach a decision. “Yeah, that’s right!”
“Nah, that’s ‘gonging like a possum’s armpit,’ mate.”
“Excuse me—” said Rincewind.
“That ain’t right. ‘Gonging like a possum’s armpit’ is when you crack a crusty. When your ears are stuffed like a Mudjee’s kettle after a week of Fridays, that’s ‘stuck up like Morgan’s mule.’”
“No, you’re referrin’ to ‘happier than Morgan’s mule in a choccy patch’—”
“You mean ‘as fast as Morgan’s mule after it ate Ma’s crow pie.’”
“How fast was that? Exactly?” said Rincewind.
They all stared at him.
“Faster’n a eel in a snake pit, mate!” said Clancy. “Don’t you understand plain language?”
Sand sailing ragatta, ya wot? I often find my self after reading good books picking up the slang a little, if I start saying "no worries" more often my wife will know I've been reading Terry Prachett
I had a friend from Aus, she was doing nanny work. The first time she went to a baseball game and the baseball song came to "let's root root root for the home team". Apparently, root means to fuck.
I always love American sports songs because they're always so incredibly basic "we want to win we want to win we want to win, remember that time 15 years ago that we did win, yeah".
I haven't fully accepted the American use of 'to nut' to mean 'to cum', I mean nut already means head and teste, in England to get nutted means to get headbutted
If you're into headbutting ladies, you can come to the US and ask if they want to "get nutted". They will probably think you're an asshole afterward though.
Huh, I've always heard and used "alright, let's kick this puppy" for "stop procrastinating and do the thing". We sometimes substitute "shake this baby" but it doesn't seem to catch on sadly.
I've had good luck in my friend group with "club the seal" instead of "break the seal", but that's a totally different thing even if the flavor of violence is similar.
Not sure if it needs to be pointed out.. to "nut it out" doesn't mean what Americans think it means. It means to use your head to come up with a solution. The nut is your head.
I get the double whammy of working with almost entirely ESL speakers in English. So not are they almost unaware of common idioms outside what they’ve picked up from American media, they’re even less aware of Kiwi/Aussie slang. I have to be super careful.
The phrase "to crack the shits" means when someone gets pushed over the threshold to become angry. Like "I used all the milk and Dad cracked the shits". Or "None of the students in the class completed their homework so the teacher cracked the shits". Or "everyone's going to crack the shits if we don't get a pay raise this year".
I'm utterly convinced that Australian slang is derived from being a relatively recent prison colony, like it's not comparable to anything other than prison or street slang.
Also for some reason my autocorrect wanted to turn colony into colon loop.
This is what happens when you conquer half the world and forget to tend to them.
You end up with cunts and people eating giant mutant grass called "corn".
Also, today I discovered that we didn't know how to cultivate sweet corn until 1779. Multiple Native American tribes independently discovered how to do so a long time before then. It literally took us three hundred years to finally sit down and ask them.
Most people are on the internet. I learned quickly that Americans, despite being online, aren't familiar with the phrase "don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs"
I've heard various references to grandmother's sucking eggs, though I don't recall that exact wording. I grew up mostly in Ohio, USA in the '80s and '90s
Tumblr etiquette. You converse in the tags to not fuck up the main post, so that others can reblog it without adding your commentary in. But sometimes the tags are really good and get screenshotted and added to the post chain
Yeah, I'm no language purist, but most instances of "I could care less" are obviously the opposite of what they mean, and sadly, the phrase has already forged itself in the (American) English lexicon as the opposite of what it means by definition, much like "literally," "inflammable" and "irregardless."
I recognize the lines we draw around such things are arbitrary, and I have no right to be angry about the above four any more than anyone has any right to be angry at me for not pronouncing the H in "who," "what," "when," "where," "why," etc.
On the one hand I admire the French for writing down what officially constitutes "French," but I'm simultaneously irked at the fact that they eradicated the majority of dialects in their borders as an intentional direct result. Or is the unity they brought about worth it to crack those eggs?
I'm sure I would say No if I was one of those eggs.
128 replies
Happens the other way too. Used to work in IT with Australians and it was hard for them to stifle giggles whenever I was talking about routing packets or routers.
For them, "rooting" means fucking
The one that gets me is Americans using fanny, which means vagina.
In the US, fanny usually means butt, but only square soccer moms and teacher types would use the term. Fanny packs are a real thing though
Fanny packs are a thing but everyone's worn them in the front since like 1992
fanny schmelar
More common is us saying “bummed out” as a very mild expression of sadness.
Shake your whammy fanny… funky song! funky song!
Sadly, Australia adopted the stupid 'Murican way of saying the word
Kiwis pronounce it correctly
I live in the US. For me a computer router is pronounced with an "ow" sound. Like if a Brit were "having a row" with someone, but with -ter at the end. Changing course ("rerouting") also uses that pronunciation. However, highway "routes" can be pronounced with that same vowel, or as "root" like a plant root.
Which way is "correct" by Kiwi standards?
Where do you stand on the woodworking tool, a direction and a complete loss in a sport/battle?
e.g. in UK
Router
Woodworking: outer is pronounced outer
Computer: outer is pronounced ooter
Route
Direction: oute is pronounced oot
Rout
Complete loss in sport/battle: out is pronounced out
Are these all "owt" in the US?
It's even worse. In the US Route is pronounced differently depending on part of speech.
We r-out our traffic to r-oot 66
They are two different words, the verb is just pronounced differently from the noun.
The only one of those that is possibly “oot” is route as in directions, in standard American English
Agreed
Yes. But I have heard people pronounce route as "root" before.
In the US, all are "out" but route can be out or oot depending on your mood
"root"
It's a French word, and they don't say "rowt"
Weird, when I say it, it’s an American word.
From my point of view the firewalls are evil.
Yeah, but yanks think they invented everything
Admittedly, school shootings started with you lot, so there's that.
Most reserved Eurobro response. "This is how I pronounce a word" WElL aT LEaSt oUR SKeWlS aren't SHEWTIN' GAlLERiEs!
Fuck off, yank
Wrong side of the world
You sound angry
Languages evolve. News at 9
especially in places that have no “language” then people with many languages come together and adopt one.
Every place has language, tho 🤔
There is no official language of the USA.
Many folks over the early years moving here learned English as a second language.
Given the nation was formed and populated by these communities the American common English formed.
That’s my point
Root in french is racine, but we do say routeur designing the electronic box.
In New Zealand, a "dag" is someone who has a good sense of humour and is fun (unlike in Australia where it has cringy connotations)
Explaining to a Yank that calling someone a shitty piece of wool, stuck to a sheep's arse is a compliment takes some convincing
And then there's "cunt"...
D'ya like dags?
I love the Aussie (and I presume Kiwi as well) use of the word “cunt.” Y’all have made it so fun 😄
Yeh its as adaptable as the English 'Fuck'.
Is it the Aussies that use it as a universal, context-sensitive way to refer to people in general, but usually in a friendly or endearing way?
English isn't my first language, so I just pick up bits and pieces that I like and make my own dialect. No clue where I pick them up, but they're mine now.
Yeah it's us.
You're a good cunt (good person)
Look here cunt (implied threat of listen to me or I'll flog you)
The word mate can be used here too
Thanks, cunt <3
No wukkas
In AustraliaIve always associated a dag with someone who dresses very idgaf; Stained trackie dacks, does whatever makes them happy without social concerns, etc. it’s slightly affectionate.
It's a gentle insult
To be fair us yanks don't know any of the meanings of dag, so we won't think of it as rude either
What word are you referring to here? I don't know of any American slang that means a shitty piece of wool stuck to a sheep's ass, *dingleberry" is the closest we got and that's not species-specific. The only thing I can think of that dag means/has meant in America is a minced oath, for either God or damn ("dagnabbit", "dag yo"). Add an O on the end and you get a largely archaic racial slur for Italian people or a highly-localized regional sandwich. Didn't know about the sandwich until I was driving through NE Minneapolis and saw a bar sign advertising "Dagos & Liquor" and briefly had to clutch my pearls until a local explained.
You can just make them up
“You can’t fling a dick in a pond without lunging a tugworm”
“Flock me a dozen cranberries and I’ll show you a real bandana”
“Eatin’s alright for the kanga, it’s the Joey’s that’ll cunt up your goomers”.
They’re all shit but you get me
I would truly believe each of these were cultural touchstones in Australia
I want to know what they mean now.
Sure, but if your boss and/or HR finds out, you'll probably get in trouble for it unless your workplace is much cooler about that sort of thing than most 🤷🏻
It's true, though. Flinging a dick in a pond would entail some changes in the laws of physics, tugworm or no 😄
"fuck me dead" wouldn't even get a reaction from me. I'm used to off the wall phrases, and as long as I can figure out contextually what is being said, I'll roll with it.
Yeah I've heard this one in the US quite a bit
I use it in the US quite a bit, after picking it up from Ozzy Man on YouTube.
Ozzy Man's videos are comedy gold. I don't know if it's the accent or the random Australian slang, but that shit cracks me up.
I happens as a Brit too. Recently I casually used the phrase "use your loaf" around some North Americans. I then had to explain that loaf = loaf of bread = head. They were like "why" and then I had to try to explain the concept of Cockney Rhyming Slang, and then there was a barrage of questions about the origin of Cockney Rhyming Slang and all the other examples. I don't know, I'm not even Cockney!
When I worked in the states, my team bought me a superman flag so I could wave the S-flag whenever I was being sarcastic. Because otherwise they wouldn't spot it.
Americans being amazed that non-Americans are not American is still a reliable trope.
Wait until they learn the origin of "seppo"
What is the origin of seppo?
Seppo -> septic tank -> yank
Amazing. Love it.
I once used the phrase "put some mustard on their custard" and got some pretty strange looks
The only thing we do with a loaf is pinch it. And I don't mean steal...
As for rhyming slang, just... how? Lots of things rhyme with so many other things and syllables apparently don't even matter (see apples and pears).
“Oh, you don’t wanna go to Bugarup,” said Remorse. “Nothing in Bugarup but a bunch of wowsers and pooftahs.” “’s okay, I like parrots,” mumbled Rincewind, who was just hoping that they would let him go so that he could hold on to the ground again. “Er…what’s Ecksian for going mad with terrified fatigue and collapsing in a boneless heap?” The men looked at one another. “Isn’t that ‘snagged as a wombat’s tonker’?” “No, no, no, that’s when you chuck a twister, isn’t it?” said Clancy. “What? Strewth, no. Chucking a twister’s when…when you…yeah, it’s when you…yeah, it’s when your nose…Hang on, that’s ‘bend a smartie’…” “Er—” said Rincewind, clutching his head. “What? ‘Bend a smartie’ is when your ears get blocked underwater.” Clancy looked uncertain, and then seemed to reach a decision. “Yeah, that’s right!” “Nah, that’s ‘gonging like a possum’s armpit,’ mate.” “Excuse me—” said Rincewind. “That ain’t right. ‘Gonging like a possum’s armpit’ is when you crack a crusty. When your ears are stuffed like a Mudjee’s kettle after a week of Fridays, that’s ‘stuck up like Morgan’s mule.’” “No, you’re referrin’ to ‘happier than Morgan’s mule in a choccy patch’—” “You mean ‘as fast as Morgan’s mule after it ate Ma’s crow pie.’” “How fast was that? Exactly?” said Rincewind. They all stared at him. “Faster’n a eel in a snake pit, mate!” said Clancy. “Don’t you understand plain language?”
Loved it when he invented Vegemite
Sand sailing ragatta, ya wot? I often find my self after reading good books picking up the slang a little, if I start saying "no worries" more often my wife will know I've been reading Terry Prachett
"We didnt come here to fuck spiders"
speak for yourself
And then there’s also “I’m not here to fuck spiders”
Or the Danish version, "fly fucking" (synonym for pedantry)
The Dutch use "mierenneuken" (fucking ants).
It's my favorite Dutch word.
No flies on you.
Imagine your main exposure to Australian lingo is from the kids show Bluey and at and some point mum goes "fuck me dead."
I had a friend from Aus, she was doing nanny work. The first time she went to a baseball game and the baseball song came to "let's root root root for the home team". Apparently, root means to fuck.
I always love American sports songs because they're always so incredibly basic "we want to win we want to win we want to win, remember that time 15 years ago that we did win, yeah".
I tried to start a British chant at an American baseball game once. Immediately got told off for swearing.
Relevant clip: https://youtu.be/KC8_HTBx8SE&t=26
You have just uttered the heart and soul the the country, well at least 40% of the country
This is why I eschew idioms at work.
"This is why I screw idiots at work"
-- Dave of the porn startup "Dumbest Whores of Silicon Valley"
Silicone Valley
Do you want to get called by HR? Stop chewing idiots.
Aussie friend: "Nut out."
Me: checks fly
I spent years wondering why people were obsessed with going outside to play darts (not joking).
Canadian, eh?
I haven't fully accepted the American use of 'to nut' to mean 'to cum', I mean nut already means head and teste, in England to get nutted means to get headbutted
It's shortened from "bust a nut" which shouldn't be too tough to decode. It does sound stupid, though.
If you're into headbutting ladies, you can come to the US and ask if they want to "get nutted". They will probably think you're an asshole afterward though.
"Not here to fuck spiders" is a classic for this
Wait this is amazing
I am surprised that no one has brought up goon yet.
Alcoholism? I've heard of an Aussie goon bag on Taskmaster, for sneaking booze into a concert or game
Goon bag is just the silver pillow that comes inside a box of wine
Gotcha, thank you.
More so how most people outside of aus associate's it with a more sexual conotation.
Let's fuck this puppy
It means leave.
Huh, I've always heard and used "alright, let's kick this puppy" for "stop procrastinating and do the thing". We sometimes substitute "shake this baby" but it doesn't seem to catch on sadly.
I've had good luck in my friend group with "club the seal" instead of "break the seal", but that's a totally different thing even if the flavor of violence is similar.
Not sure if it needs to be pointed out.. to "nut it out" doesn't mean what Americans think it means. It means to use your head to come up with a solution. The nut is your head.
You have witnessed the last 10% of the immigrant experience: idioms and cultural quirks.
I get the double whammy of working with almost entirely ESL speakers in English. So not are they almost unaware of common idioms outside what they’ve picked up from American media, they’re even less aware of Kiwi/Aussie slang. I have to be super careful.
Sometimes you just need to come back to a problem with a clear head.
I've had strange looks when I say "crack the shits" or just "crack it". Take it for granted that everyone uses these terms.
And what would everyone be using these terms to describe?
Pooping? Being tough on crime? Solving a problem? Bullying delinquent children? Or maybe finishing a difficult piece of work.
The phrase "to crack the shits" means when someone gets pushed over the threshold to become angry. Like "I used all the milk and Dad cracked the shits". Or "None of the students in the class completed their homework so the teacher cracked the shits". Or "everyone's going to crack the shits if we don't get a pay raise this year".
Ah. So the same as "flipped their shit."
Yeah that's a good comparison.
I'm utterly convinced that Australian slang is derived from being a relatively recent prison colony, like it's not comparable to anything other than prison or street slang.
Also for some reason my autocorrect wanted to turn colony into colon loop.
This is what happens when you conquer half the world and forget to tend to them.
You end up with cunts and people eating giant mutant grass called "corn".
Also, today I discovered that we didn't know how to cultivate sweet corn until 1779. Multiple Native American tribes independently discovered how to do so a long time before then. It literally took us three hundred years to finally sit down and ask them.
If it makes it any better corn is just an archaic term for all grain. Why it got locked to maize in particular I have no clue.
#what
life on the frontier has its perks
Fuck me dead I was just trying to nut out.
I feel like I could be Aussie. Especially if I get to call people a cheeky cunt with no repercussions.
Do people never go on the internet?
Edit: nvm. Tourists aren't you and i, dear reader.
Nope. You're the first one. Congratulations.
Most people are on the internet. I learned quickly that Americans, despite being online, aren't familiar with the phrase "don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs"
Because their familiarity with a 16th century idiom is the benchmark of all knowledge, I guess.
I haven't heard this used in like 30 years.
I mean because you don't use it doesn't mean no one does.
I've heard various references to grandmother's sucking eggs, though I don't recall that exact wording. I grew up mostly in Ohio, USA in the '80s and '90s
on a teams call
Guys we can solve this if we all just nut it out
Lets all nut one out!
“Nut out” isn’t a saying here though. “Nut it out” is.
Fuck your dad?
No thanks
"iut youre"
And what's with the fucking number signs? That whole comment is a grammatical nightmare.
That's how some Tumblr users do things, putting it all in hashtags. Don't shoot me, I don't do it, I'm just aware of the practice thanks to my kids.
Tumblr etiquette. You converse in the tags to not fuck up the main post, so that others can reblog it without adding your commentary in. But sometimes the tags are really good and get screenshotted and added to the post chain
At a certain point of the continuum, someone's writing becomes too much of a pain in the behind to read and interpret their meaning.
This one's over the line for me. Mark it zero.
From the culture that brought you "I could care less" to indicate that they in fact could in fact, not care less. Genius.
Yeah, I'm no language purist, but most instances of "I could care less" are obviously the opposite of what they mean, and sadly, the phrase has already forged itself in the (American) English lexicon as the opposite of what it means by definition, much like "literally," "inflammable" and "irregardless."
I recognize the lines we draw around such things are arbitrary, and I have no right to be angry about the above four any more than anyone has any right to be angry at me for not pronouncing the H in "who," "what," "when," "where," "why," etc.
On the one hand I admire the French for writing down what officially constitutes "French," but I'm simultaneously irked at the fact that they eradicated the majority of dialects in their borders as an intentional direct result. Or is the unity they brought about worth it to crack those eggs?
I'm sure I would say No if I was one of those eggs.