Aussie Culture

A Kiwi (New Zealander) friend, Robyn, sent me this recently so I thought I should pass it on, while you will have seen similar lists before this one has a distinctive Australian flavour. (and a u in flavor which my "American" spell checker doesn't like)

Rural Australian Computer Terminology
A little bit of Aussie culture.....

LOG ON: Adding wood to make the barbie hotter.

LOG OFF: Not adding any more wood to the barbie.

MONITOR: Keeping an eye on the barbie.

DOWNLOAD: Getting the firewood off the Ute.

HARD DRIVE: Making the trip back home without any cold tinnies.

KEYBOARD: Where you hang the Ute keys.

WINDOW: What you shut when the weather's cold.

SCREEN: What you shut in the mozzie season.

BYTE: What mozzies do.

MEGABYTE: What Townsville mozzies do.

CHIP: A bag snack.

MICROCHIP: What's left in the bag after you've eaten the chips.

MODEM: What you did to the lawns.

LAPTOP: Where the cat sleeps.

SOFTWARE: Plastic knives & forks you get at Red Rooster.

HARDWARE: Stainless steel knives & forks - from K-Mart.

MOUSE: The small rodent that eats the grain in the shed.

MAINFRAME: What holds the shed up.

WEB: What spiders make.

WEBSITE: Usually in the shed or under the verandah.

SEARCH ENGINE: What you do when the Ute won't go.

CURSOR: What you say when the Ute won't go.

YAHOO: What you say when the Ute does go.

UPGRADE: A steep hill.

SERVER: The person at the pub who brings out the counter lunch.

MAIL SERVER: The bloke at the pub who brings out the counter lunch.

USER: The neighbour who keeps borrowing things.

NETWORK: What you do when you need to repair the fishing net.

INTERNET: Where you want the fish to go.

NETSCAPE: What the fish do when they discover the hole in the net.

ONLINE: Where you hang the washing.

OFFLINE: Where the washing ends up when the pegs aren't strong enough.

Our ever changing language

New words from old.

Following are results from an OZ-words Competition where entrants were asked to take an Australian word, alter it by one letter only, and supply a witty definition. Clearly, you need to be an Aussie to understand . (with all the tuition you have been getting lately I think most of you will understand this... if you need help... just ask.)

Billabong - Billabonk : to make passionate love beside a waterhole.

Budgie - Bludgie : a partner who doesn't work, but is kept as a pet.

Didgeridoo - Dodgeridoo : a fake indigenous artifact.

Fair Dinkum - Fair drinkum : good-quality Aussie wine.

Platypus - Flatypus : a cat that has been run over by a vehicle.

Mateship - Mateshit : all your flat mate's belongings, lying strewn around the floor.

Swagman - Shagman : an unemployed male, roaming the Australian bush in search of sexual activity.

Yabbie - Yabble : the unintelligible language of Australian freshwater crustaceans.

Bushwalker - Bushwanker : a pretentious drongo, who reckons he's above average when it comes to handling himself in the scrub.

Trackie-daks - Crackie-daks : 'hipster' tracksuit pants.

And for the Kiwi's amongst us:

Hornbag - Shornbag : a particularly attractive naked sheep.

Here's an updated version of a an oldie, now even better.

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.


FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You were going to sell them and retire on the income, but everyone has had the same idea, the bottom drops out of the market and you go bust.

SURREALISM
You have 2 giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.

No balance sheet provided with the release.

The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.

But you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows.

None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have 2 sheep.
The one on the left has long eyelashes and looks very attractive.

And still they keep coming.

DEMOCRATIC

You have 2 cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.


REPUBLICAN

You have 2 cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?


SOCIALIST

You have 2 cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.


COMMUNIST

You have 2 cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.


CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have 2 cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.



BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have 2 cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.


AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.

You are surprised when one cow drops dead.

You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.

Your stock goes up.

MISSISSIPPI CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You only provide enough grain for one cow.
You tax the cow that eats the grain.
You use the tax to pay the other cow to stay home and watch Jerry Springer on TV.

FRENCH CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.


JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.


GERMAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.


ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.


RUSSIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.


TALIBAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You have all the cows in Afghanistan, (which is two.)
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.

You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.


IRAQI CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.


POLISH CORPORATION

You have 2 bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.


BELGIAN CORPORATION

You have 1 cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.

The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.


FLORIDA CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.
One is a black cow and the other is a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.

Some people vote for both.

Some people vote for neither.

Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.

Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.


CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

You have millions of cows.

They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.

Most are illegal’s.

Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

I had 2 cows.

Over a period of several months, I ate them.

Australian as she is spoken 4

Now I know you are all going to be sad to learn that this is the last episode of this educational series, but don't worry I'll think of something else to numb your minds with, and as promised there will be questions!!!

R

Rack off : push off! get lost! get out of here! also "rack off hairy legs!".
Rage : party
Rage on : to continue partying - "we raged on until 3am"
Rapt : pleased, delighted
Ratbag : mild insult
Raw prawn, to come the : to bullshit, to be generally disagreeable
Reckon! : you bet! Absolutely!
Reffo : refugee
Rego : vehicle registration
Rellie or relo : family relative
Ridgy-didge : original, genuine
Right, she : it'll be all right
Right, that'd be : Accepting bad news as inevitable. ("I went fishing but caught nothing." "Yeah, that'd be right.")
Rip snorter : great, fantastic - "it was a rip snorter of a party"
Ripper : great, fantastic - "it was a ripper party"
Ripper, you little! : Exclamation of delight or as a reaction to good news
Road train : big truck with many trailers
Rock up : to turn up, to arrive - "we rocked up at their house at 8pm"
Rollie : a cigarette that you roll yourself
Roo : kangaroo
Roo bar : stout bar fixed to the front of a vehicle to protect it against hitting kangaroos (also bull bar)
Root (verb and noun) : synonym for f*ck in nearly all its senses: "I feel rooted"; "this washing machine is rooted"; "(s)he's a good root". A very useful word in fairly polite company. (thus our surprise when Americans "root" for their team!!)
Root rat : somebody who is constantly looking for sex.
Ropeable : very angry
Rort (verb or noun) : Cheating, fiddling, defrauding (expenses, the system etc.). Usually used of politicians
Rotten : drunk - "I went out last night and got rotten"
Rubbish (verb) : to criticize

Rug rat : an infant, usually still crawling.

Rhyming Slang : sauce = dead horse, look = Captain Cook, fart = horse and cart, wife = trouble and strife, cold = soldiers bold (or just soldiers, which can be tricky even for a local) the list could go on forever.

S

Salute, Aussie : brushing flies away
Salvos, the : Salvation Army, bless them
Sandgroper : a person from Western Australia
Sanger : a sandwich
Sav : saveloy (see also "fair suck of the sav!")
Schooner : large beer glass in Queensland; medium beer glass in South Australia
Scratchie : instant lottery ticket
Screamer : party lover; "two pot screamer" - somebody who gets drunk on very little alcohol
Septic : an American, derived from “Yank = septic tank” in rhyming slang.
Servo : petrol station

Shag : see root
Shag on a rock, stands out like a : very obvious
Shark biscuit : somebody new to surfing
She'll be right : it'll turn out okay
Sheepshagger : A New Zealander
Sheila : a woman
Shit house (adj.) : of poor quality, un-enjoyable ("this car is shit house", "the movie was shit house")
Shit house (noun) : toilet, lavatory
Shonky : dubious, underhanded. E.g. a shonky practice, shonky business etc.
Shoot through : to leave
Shout : turn to buy - a round of drinks usually ("it's your shout")
Show pony : someone who tries hard, by his dress or behaviour, to impress those around him.
Sickie : day off sick from work (chuck a sickie = take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy!)
Skite : boast, brag
Skull/Skol (a beer) : to drink a beer in a single draught without taking a breath
Slab : a carton of 24 bottles or cans of beer
Sleepout : house verandah converted to a bedroom
Smoko : smoke or coffee break from work.
Snag : a sausage
Sook : person or animal who is soft, tame, inoffensive. Hence sooky (adj.)
Spag bol : spaghetti bolognese
Spewin' : very angry
Spiffy, pretty spiffy : great, excellent
Spit the dummy : get very upset at something
Spruiker : man who stands outside a nightclub or restaurant trying to persuade people to enter
Sprung : caught doing something wrong
Spunk : a good looking person (of either sex)
Squizz (noun) : look - "take a squizz at this"
Standover man : a large man, usually gang-related, who threatens people with physical violence in order to have his wishes carried out.
Station : a big farm/grazing property
Stickybeak : nosy person
Stoked : very pleased
Stonkered : drunk
Strewth : exclamation, mild oath ("Strewth, that Chris is a bonzer bloke")
Strides : trousers
Strine : Australian slang and pronunciation

Stubbies : a brand of work wear shorts.
Stubby : a 375ml. beer bottle
Stubby holder : polystyrene insulated holder for a stubby
Stuffed, I feel : I'm tired
Stuffed, I'll be : expression of surprise
Sunbake : sunbathe
Sunnies : sunglasses
Surfies : people who go surfing - usually more often than they go to work!
Swag : rolled up bedding etc. carried by a swagman
Swaggie : swagman
Swagman : tramp, hobo

T

Tall poppies : successful people
Tall poppy syndrome : the tendency to criticize successful people
Tallie : 750ml bottle of beer
Taswegian : derogatory term for a person from Tasmania
Technicolor yawn : vomit
Tee-up : to set up (an appointment)

Territorian : a person from the Northern Territory.
Thingo : Wadjamacallit, thingummy, whatsit
Thongs : cheap rubber backless sandals, also a very skimpy undergarment.
Throw-down : small bottle of beer which you can throw down (drink) quickly.
Tickets, to have on oneself : to have a high opinion of oneself
Tinnie : can of beer
Tinnie : small aluminium boat
Tinny, tin-arsed : lucky
Togs : swim suit
Too right! : definitely!
Top End : far north of Australia
Trackie daks/dacks : tracksuit pants
Trackies : track suit
Troppo, gone : to have escaped to a state of tropical madness; to have lost the veneer of civilisation after spending too long in the tropics.
Trough lolly : the solid piece of perfumed disinfectant in a men's urinal
Truckie : truck driver
True blue : patriotic
Tucker : food
Tucker-bag : food bag, associated with swaggies and itinerant workers
Turps : turpentine, also alcoholic drink
Turps, hit the : go on a drinking binge
Two up : gambling game played by spinning two coins simultaneously and betting on the outcome.

U

Uni : university
Unit : flat, apartment
Up oneself : have a high opinion of oneself - "he's really up himself"
Up somebody, get : to rebuke somebody - "the boss got up me for being late"
Useful as an ashtray on a motorbike / tits on a bull : unhelpful or incompetent person or thing - "he, she or it is about as useful as tits on a bull" etc. etc.
Ute : utility vehicle, pickup truck

V

Veggies : vegetables
Vee dub : Volkswagen
Veg out : relax in front of the TV (like a vegetable)
Vejjo : vegetarian

Vic : a person from Victoria.
Vinnie's : St. Vincent De Paul's (charity thrift stores and hostels)

W

WACA (pron. whacker) : Western Australian Cricket Association and the Perth cricket ground
Waggin' school : playing truant
Walkabout : a walk in the Outback by Aborigines that lasts for an indefinite amount of time
Walkabout, it's gone : it's lost, can't be found
Weekend warrior : army reservist
Whacker, whacka : Idiot; somebody who talks drivel; somebody with whom you have little patience; a dickhead
Whinge : complain
White pointers : topless (female) sunbathers
Whiteant (verb) : to criticise something to deter somebody from buying it. A car dealer might whiteant another dealer's cars.
Wobbly : excitable behaviour ("I complained about the food and the waiter threw a wobbly")
Wobbly boot on, he's got the : drunk, can't stand up properly.
Wog : flu or trivial illness
Wog : person of Mediterranean origin. A milder insult than the same word in the UK and perhaps elsewhere.
Wombat : somebody who eats, roots and leaves (see also root)
Woop Woop : invented name for any small unimportant town - "he lives in Woop Woop"
Wowser : straight-laced person, prude, puritan, spoilsport
Wuss : coward; nervous person or animal

X

XXXX : pronounced Four X, brand of beer made in Queensland

Y

Yabber : talk (a lot)
Yabby : inland freshwater crayfish found in Australia (Cherax destructor)
Yakka : work (noun), derived from a brand of work wear of the same name.
Yewy : u-turn in traffic ("chuck a yewy at the next traffic lights")
Yobbo : an uncouth person

Z

Zack : sixpence (5 cents) - "it isn't worth a zack", "he hasn't got a zack"