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In Nathan Bierma's recent column (which I can't seem to find on the Web), he talks about some interesting Australian words and phrases, though Shu and I aren't certain how accurate they all are. Here are some of my favorites: ~ "Sleeping in a Star Hotel" - Sounds nice, right? Nope. It means sleeping under the stars because you've lost your job. ~ "Cold as a polar bear's backside" - I mention this one because even Bierma says that it's odd that it would gain currency in balmy Australia. Any thoughts on that? The definition speaks for itself. ~ "If it rained soup, I'd be left with a fork" - Unlucky. This apparently is equivalent to a British phrase, "If it rained porridge, he would lack his dish." ~ "Kangaroos loose in the top paddock" - Crazy. The equivalent to "having a few screws loose" or "bats in the belfry." ~ "Couldn't blow the froth off a glass of beer" - Weak. (I am sure Richard wonders why there is any froth in the first place!) ~ "Busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale" - As busy as someone posting fliers in a storm. This is similar to one I like: "As busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger." If I can find the article online, I will post the whole thing. | ||
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I've never heard of it. Richard English | |||
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Nor have I. On the other hand I have heard (and quite frequently) the Australian version quoted - if it was raining soup I'd have a fork. Maybe this is a phrase that originated here in my part of the UK and was exported to Australia along with all the convicts we used to send them.  "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Ditto. I suppose it may be an old dialect phrase I've never come across, though. Like Bob, I've heard the "soup/fork" version frequently here. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Well, it was a nice article, but, as I had said, we weren't so sure how accurate it is. Obviously, if none of you has heard of that phrase, we were correct on the accuracy part. | |||
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They examples mentioned are all colourful Australian phrases. The only real query is about the mention of the "porridge/dish" phrase as a UK saying. It may well be a dialect or regional saying that the three of us English posters have never heard. The mention of porridge, in fact, may even indicate a Scottish saying. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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| <Asa Lovejoy> |
So who came up with the old rhyme, "Peas porridge hot/Peas porridge cold/Peas porridge in the pot/Nine days old? | ||
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It's actually pease - sometimes spelled peace. According to Wikipedia the rhyme's origins are unknown. I would mention that the version I learned was Pease Pudding Hot .... Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Pease pudding I've heard of (it's what you normally eat with faggots) but I've never heard of pease porridge. Richard English | |||
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Faggots with Pease Pudding Had to find out what this was about. Here's a recipe from UK Personal Chef. Looks a bit heavy, but tasty! | |||
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Any proper discussion of Australian words and phrases must include Waltzing Matilda, don't you think ??? | |||
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I liked the warning in the recipe opposite that for faggots: "Don't even read this if you are squeamish, this is a recipe for wild rabbit stew and you have to kill them." Just think how much more difficult it would be if the rabbits were still alive... Richard English | |||
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| <Asa Lovejoy> |
It's not so hard - rabbit hide is very easy to tear off. It's recommended they be dead first, though. Asa the former primative carnivore | ||
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G'day Kalleh, Some are close but no cigar and others are right on the money and a few miss the point entirely. The following is not documented and is the personal opinion of a 50 year old monolingual Aussie. There is only one Star Hotel. The saying is to be sleeping under the Star Hotel. It is not necessarily bad and depending upon conditions is a favoured passtime above the Tropic of Capricorn. Yes it does have hints of homelessness but would require context. Backside in an Aussie saying. Not likely. When someone is being difficult they are as cold as a Polar Bear's bum with the inference being that they are also a bum. There is also the rudeness oif a bear bum and the choice of a Polar Bear's bum is obvious. Any other bears with colder bums? Yup. Bang on. We have heaps of these. It would be "'Roos loose in the top paddock" and this is a very versatile saying and goes from being very complimentary. To have no 'roos loose in the top paddock is to be reliable but boring. To have a 'roo loose in the top paddock is to be averagely intelligent and have an occasionally good idea. To have a few 'roos loose in the top paddock is to be quite bright and have consistently good ideas. To have a few too many 'roos loose in the top paddock is to be unreliable and feckless. To have nothing but 'roos in the top paddock is to be crazy. The top paddock is obviously the brain but the analogy is to the physical top paddock which in Australia is the poorest paddock with the least water and topsoil due to dind erosion. The best paddocks are always the bottom paddocks. The clever farmer who encourages a few Big Reds or Greys into his top paddock will not be troubled by wild dogs and dingos as even female 'roos will disembowel any dog in seconds and a big buck will take on a pack and beat them senseless in seconds. Couldn't blow the head off a middy (or pony), A middy is a 10 ounce glass and a pony is a 7 ounce glass and it is inferred that real men drink Schooies (Schooners 15 ounce) or Pints (20 Ounces). There is a requirement for head and blow to be included because it is also a homophobic taunt. Never heard of that one. We have bill posters but to be really engaged in a subject is to be as busy as a one legged man at an arse kicking contest. I'd love to see it. Translation is fun and very revealing of cultural variations in these circumstances. .,, | |||
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Never imagined I'd learn so much Australian in one page. I would have a hard time translating those to Spanish. | |||
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Well, dot dot comma, I still couldn't find it online, but since you'd love to see the whole column, I am pasting the copy here that I receive through my email. I love Bierma's columns so he emails them to me: If all you know about Australian English are the word "crikey!" and the greeting "Good day, mate!" then you need to learn some Australian idioms. Australian linguist Pam Peters introduces us to some choice Aussie phrases in her chapter in the new book "Phraseology and Culture in English," a collection of linguistic studies edited by Paul Skandera (Mouton de Gruyter, 524 pages, $132. It's a technical book for academics, but many of Peters' examples had me chuckling. Feel free to spice up your own conversation with some of these phrases, but be prepared to explain them! -"Alone like a country dunny": A "dunny" is an outhouse in Australian English. An outhouse in the country stands all alone. -"Busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale": busy as someone putting up fliers in a storm. I'm ashamed to say this was the first time I understood those signs that say "post no bills." All I could think of was dollar bills, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would nail those to a phone pole. But if "bills" means "fliers," then it makes sense. Australians also say "busy as a one-armed milker on a dairy farm," and "busy as a blowie at a barbie," meaning busy as a blowfly at a barbecue. Peters says these phrases are said with criticism, not admiration; if someone says them about you, they think you're working too hard. -"Bald as a bandicoot": A bandicoot, Peters says, is a small ratlike marsupial that lives in Australia. "Bandicoot" is such a fun word to say -- and such an unsympathetic animal to make fun of -- that it shows up in many Australian idioms, including "poor as a bandicoot" and "miserable as an orphan bandicoot"; if a piece of land is worthless, you could say, "A bandicoot would starve on it." "No other Australian animal seems to be as deeply embedded in idiom as the bandicoot," Peters says. -"Cold as a polar bear's backside": self-explanatory, though I wonder how this phrase gained currency in balmy Australia! -"Couldn't blow the froth off a glass of beer": weak. Similar phrases include "couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding." -"Doesn't know whether it's Tuesday or Bourke Street": utterly confused. You would hear this in Melbourne, the home of Bourke Street, and would hear "Pitt Street" substituted in Sydney, Peters says. -"Dressed like a pox-doctor's clerk": overdressed. A doctor's clerk doesn't need to dress up. -"Flat out like a lizard drinking": This phrase can mean either taking the physical posture of a lizard leaning forward to drink, or just working hard. -"Gone to Gowings": This phrase has a remarkable history, Peters says. Back in the 1940s, ads for the Gowings department store in Australia used the slogan "gone to Gowings," showing scenes in which people had left quickly to go shopping. One memorable ad showed a bride left at the altar, reading a note left by the groom that said, "Gone to Gowings." "This would account for it becoming a general excuse for someone's absence, doing something else which cannot or should not be specified," Peters comments. But eventually, the phrase would get even more vague and versatile. Now "gone to Gowings" can mean going broke, losing a game, sleeping off a hangover, or most recently, suffering dementia. All from an advertising slogan. -"If it rained soup, I'd be left with a fork": unlucky; the equivalent of the British phrase "if it rained porridge, he would lack his dish." -"Kangaroos loose in the top paddock": crazy; the equivalent of having "a few screws loose" or "bats in the belfry." -"Mad as a gumtree full of galahs": Peters explains, "The galah is a medium-sized Autralian parrot, which roosts above ground in noisy flocks." -"Sleeping in the Star Hotel": This sounds nice, but it means sleeping under the stars because you're out of a job. -"Things are crook at Musselbrook": that town is in bad condition. It can be any town; Musselbrook is used because it rhymes. Also: "things are weak at Werris Creek" and "there's no work at Bourke." -"Wet enough to bog a duck": It's so wet, a duck would get stuck in the mud. | |||
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Not, I assume, a phrase used often in Australia at present. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Happily you are wrong. We are drowning. 19 billion litres flowed inot one dam in one day last week. A bulk tanker ship was blown ashore onto Nobbys Beach at Newcastle. The worst drought in living memory is being broken by the worst floods in living memory. The Pacific Highway was washed away. Houses are floating along flood plains that were dry river beds last week. A land of flooding droughts. .,, | |||
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Fair enough. I don't want to come off sounding like a knob but I must say that I am not familiar with many of the idioms quoted and some have obviously been 'cleaned up' for a conservative audience and others defy logic and generations. We don't have pet kangaroos and most Australians are as urbanised as most Americans or most Europeans. The only bloke who said, "Crikey" was Steve Irwin. Everybody knew it was his trademark and had not been used in Australia for at least a generation. The greeting is not, "Good day" it is, "G'day". I am yet to hear it said properly by a person who was not born in Australia. It is a shibboleth. Good lord! This is a technical linguistic book! Was it peer reviewed? Are any of the writers Australians living in Australian who speak fluent Australian? That could be tricky with some if the suggested phrasing is employed. I have never heard of a 'country dunny' even though I had a dunny for the first 14 years of my life. I have heard of a 'bush dunny' or 'an outback dunny' but never a country dunny. All dunnys are isolated because of the smell and the phrase, "As lonely as an outback dunny." would make perfect sense and is a recognisable Australian form of an obviously translated or Americanized idiom. This may have made sense if it had not been translated. Australians do not 'stick' bills we 'post' bills. There are stencilled signs on many walls officially warning that the sign itself is breaking the law by stating, 'Post no bills. Bill posters will be prosecuted.' This spawns all sorts of jokes about Bill being sent by mail or posted and not many parents named Posters name their child William. The idiom is, 'To be as busy as a one legged man at an arse kicking contest.' or maybe; 'To be as busy as a one armed bill poster in a cyclone.' A 'storm' is just not intense enough a word. Strike me lucky and blow me down with a feather! Those phrases may have been familiar to my da {grandfather} but most Aussies think that milk comes in a carton and I can't remember the last time I heard the 'blowie at a barby'. We are quite familiar with being, "As busy as a blue arsed fly." but blowies are considered to be lugubrious and slow. Anything but busy. I have NEVER heard bandicoot used in this manner. All of those phrases have been translated from the original 'dingo'. There is no other animal so maligned in Australian linguistics than a dingo. Most Aussies think of a Bandicoot as a cute little marsupial with no negative features but the dingo is universally reviled. I would dearly love to see some substantiation of this and wonder at the ommission of the dingo. We do actually have televisions and some of us read books with no illustrations. How many Polar bears live in Continental America or Europe? Why should Australians be any more ignorant of lions and tigers and Polar Bears than any other culture. I find this to be extraordinarily simplistic and rather hubristic. Strike me fat. What is going on here? You can't knock the skin off a rice pudding. Even Mr. Universe could not knock the skin off a rice pudding but Mr. Puniverse may be 'too weak to pull the skin off a rice pudding.' Beer is not served in a 'glass' in Australia. It is a pony or a middie or a schooie or a pint. Again I detect the fullsome whiff of Americanization. Never heard of it. That has left me not knowing if it is my arse or my elbow. This couldn't be more wrong on the wrongest day of the year if it was translated through a wronging machine. A pox doctor's clerk is a madam in a brothel. A pox doctor is a prostitute because if you go to that 'doctor' you get the pox or a sexually transmitted disease. Bullseye. Random chance rules! The fuller story is that Gowings were originally a very upmarket establishment that has over the interveneing decades gradually diminished in status to the point that it became a place for quite low budgets and went into receviership a couple of years ago and has stopped trading. Gone to gowings was a flash saying when my nanna (grandmother) said it but it would now be said by my daughter to describe her greatgrandmother. Perfect again. Not quite and I have written on this gorgeous and very utilitarian idiom previously. That makes sense but I have never heard it. Mad as a meat ax is far more common. Used to be but now it is almost a brag that you are on holidays and choose to sleep under The Star Hotel. We do love rhyming slang. I love 'china' for friend. Never heard of it and don't know many places in Australia that would qualify on a regular basis. These academic books are interesting but seem to have strange agendas. Australian idioms are earthy and gutteral and blunt and straignt to the bone. We don't fancy up our sayings and are happy to call a spade a bloody shovel. .,,This message has been edited. Last edited by: .,,, | |||
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If one wishes to read peer-reviewed linguistics by an Australian born and bred linguist, one could do no worse than reading any of Kate Burridge's books. I've posted before about at least one of them here. I met her at a writers' conference in Palm Springs where we were both invited speakers. I went off with her and all the other Australians who'd come to the conference on some kind of pub crawl. I bailed early. She did not try to speak with an American accent, and I didn't try an Australian one.This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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I have been reminded by my Wordcraft colleagues that I have mistakenly called you dot dot comma, dot comma comma, instead of dot comma comma. Sorry about that! | |||
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I have been and am sure to be called worse. .,, | |||
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I shortened my name to Alexa because when I signed as Alexandra everyone read Alexander and changed my sex to male. That's worse than a dot or a comma. Made me feel as if I was a transvestite. | |||
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Oh, and .,, why are dingos so universally reviled? | |||
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Purely prejudice. The dingo is the native dog and has been in Australia for about 6,000 years. It is a wonderfully gentle and intelligent dog with nothing but positive traits but it is a Koori dog and was tagged as being inferior. It was illegal to own one until very recently and even now is highly restricted. .,, | |||
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But why? I had a wolf. Wolf was, and in many parts of Spain still is, a reviled animal. I slept with Akela curled up on my bed till the day she died. She had a penchant for our neighbour's hens, but so have my little mongrels. She was a lovely loving wolf and very protective with all of us and terribly patient with the children. | |||
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Dot comma comma, what do you like to be called? .,,? Or DCC? Or Full Stop comma comma? What shall we call you? I really should give Nathan Bierma your take on those Australian words, .,,. I am sure he'd appreciate it. Have you, .,,, read any of Kate Burridge's books that z recommends? They sound good, Z. | |||
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The Dingo became inextricably linked with the Aboriginal Culture and was considered to be as inferior as the Koori {how true this turns out to be} as the Frazer Island Dingo is considered to be the last pure breed of dog extant. The wolf may be reviled but it is universally reviled rather than culturally reviled where it is reviled not revered. .,, | |||
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.,, seems to be as pronouncable as Kalleh to my fingers. I have a preference for .,, at the moment. My culture allows for up to nine names depending upon the level of intimacy of the encounter. I would be absolutely honoured. It is very difficult to read books about Australian idioms as most are not written in Australia by active Australian speakers and tend to grate on my nerves. I prefer to read in the lingo and therefore immerse myself in the lingo of Keith Garvey's Bastards I Have Met and Other Bastards I Have Met or as a reference book I could recommend Great Aussie Slang compiled by Maggie Pinkney. .,, | |||
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I thought that was the Huski. I love wolves and I'd like to live with another one. I love my dogs but my wolf was proud. She never lost her free spirit and I love free spirits. | |||
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You are probably correct but I was indistinct. I ommitted to include the phrase 'living in the wild'. As another oddity Australia has the only large herds of wild one humped camels on Earth. They are in plague proportions in the outback. .,, | |||
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We have a plague of American miks which were brought into Spain because apparently they are better fitted to make minkcoats than the original Spanish minks. I can't understand why someone would want a minkcoat, but I can see the economic reason for bringing into Spain the American minks. But why someone would want to bring camels into Australia? | |||
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But why someone would want to bring camels into Australia? For the same reason they were brought into the US: military applications. We had them in California,and other States, too, but the feral population has since died out. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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That just shows to go you. My opinion of Wikipedia is there is no such thing as a free lunch. I have lived in many parts of australia's remote inland outback from Menindee to Gunnedah and Leeton to Tallimba and have never heard of any military use of the camel. I am a horseman and consider camels to be beasts of burden with few redeeming features other than that they are hard to kill and can walk across sand. They destroy waterholes and vegetation. You should see what a mob of camels can do to a waterhole with their habit of sucking up something like 80 litres of water per minute. This action stirs up so much sediment and muck that the water is undrinkable for hours afterwards and the erosion and damage to the very fragile eco system is beyond measure. Camels were introduced by early explorers and freight companies to cross the vast dry expanses and nothing more. I served six years in the Army in the Royal Australian Corps of Transport and never once heard a whisper of any history of camels in the military. Australia was fiercely horse proud and took part in the last known cavalry charge in history. No camels involved. I think that someone is having a lend of Wikipedia. .,, | |||
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| <Asa Lovejoy> |
You remind me of a comment once made when someone mentioned Camilla Parker-Bowes. " 'Camilla?' Is that a dromedary or a bactrian?" | ||
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I have lived in many parts of australia's remote inland outback from Menindee to Gunnedah and Leeton to Tallimba and have never heard of any military use of the camel. Ya live; ya learn. (Even down under.) Some sites about the Imperial Camel Corps: one, two, and three. As these examples are also from the internet, you may remain skeptical. One of them is an Oz gummint site, and another the UK's Imperial War Museum. How about a couple of dead tree books? (1) Geoffrey Inchbald. Imperial Camel Corps, and, (2) T. E. Lawrence. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I'd seen a documentary about the US and Commonwealth camel corps, but used Wikipedia as it's meant to be used. A quick, easy to get to online resource. Of course, one should check the facts and keep a critical mind, but I, for one, don't see what all the hubbub is about Wikipedia. It's no worse or better than any general reference work. Sniff. [Addendum: A monument to the ICC, Victoria Embankment, London, UK. The inscription mentions British, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian ICC men who died during the Great War. Could be a photoshopped picture, though.]This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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With every due respect to Wikipedia you have demonstrated the potential of that site and this site to promote an amazing myth. The casual observer to this conversation would consider you to be right and me to be wrong in this and that there are now thousnds of camels roaming the Australian outback because they descended from abandoned military stock. We now have opinions of members of Wordcraft and members of Wikipedia saying that the Australian military used camels in Australia. I just spent my time reading about some casual units that were formed in Egypt to use local Egyptian camels in war. Heavens above they didn't even have an official emblem or colours. The rising sun is the generic emblem of the entire Australian Army and every Australian soldier is entitled to wear it but each and every official Corps has an official emblem. A Star for R.A.C.T., a Greek statue for Royal Australian Corps of Signallers. This mob have a Rising Sun and some hand made cards. They seemed to have been rather enterprising. This is not unusual in war but I am left wondering how many of those camels were imported back to Australia. One thing I am aware of is that Australian troops very nearly mutinieed in South Africa when they were told that they were to be forced to abandon their horses. I have never heard of any Australian military use of camels {in Australia} and do not believe that there were any camels used in Australia by the Australian military other than as exploratory transport by Commissioned Officers who were seconded to become explorers of the interior. I am sorry to hurt your feelings but Wikipedia often suffers from the same lack as does Reader's Digest. Superficiality and lack of context. .,, | |||
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I loved the Sally Forth comic on Sunday, July 1, 2007, that reference Wikipedia. We have it hanging in the break room at my library. I tried to link it here, but it wouldn't link reliably. I suggest you google for it. I found it view-able in The Seattle Times archives. ******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama | |||
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I served six years in the Army in the Royal Australian Corps of Transport and never once heard a whisper of any history of camels in the military. Are you saying there were no Australian units in the ICC? This is what I was reacting to. As to why there are feral camels in Australia, I admit I was mistaken. Unlike the US military use of camels which did lead to a minor problem with feral camels, all of which have since died out, the Australian problem was as you say based on the importation of camels as beasts of transport starting in the mid-19th century. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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It seems we have not learnt anything. Last century someone brought into the North of Spain some trees from new Zealand or Australia (I'm not sure; from down under in any case). They were trees which grew very fast so they were useful for the industry. The native trees were oak trees, willows and chetnut trees. The result is that the eucalyptus invaded every forest, the native wildlife disappeared, the soil degraded, and now it is impossible to get rid of them. | |||
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Not at all. I didn't know anything about Aussies riding camels overseas but that was not the question at hand. Now that you point it out it is obvious. Back then Aussie horsemen bragged that they could ride anything with two or four legs so they would have jumped at the chance to ride a camel rather than walk across sand. I am very happy to have learned something new from you. .,, | |||
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I'm looking out my back window at a grove of Eucalyptus trees. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm looking at bamboo from Asia, ivy from England and eucalyptus from Australia. | |||
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You mob sound like you need to release some feral Koalas. .,, | |||
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I'm not sure because if we imported them to get rid of the eucalyptus we would end up needing camels to get rid of the koalas. A non native species is always potentially dangerous to native ones. | |||
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You could just import kudzu to choke off and pull down all the other introduced species. But, yeah, you're right; it's a bit of the old lady who swallowed the fly syndrome. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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I haven't got the slightest idea what a kudzu is. A kind of Terminator? | |||
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Yes. Yes it is. | |||
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I haven't got the slightest idea what a kudzu is. I'd link to the Wikipedia article, but I don't want to risk anymore international fireworks. From what I've been told, it's a fast-growing plant originally from Japan that was imported into the US South to cover over bare lots of land and such. It started growing up telephone poles and pulling down the wires and causing no end of havoc. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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