Every once in awhile, my friends try to translate things from Australian English to American English. They say a sentence, look at me, then substitute the word they think I may not know*.
Examples:
"I'm just going to pop to the loo..(looks at me)..er..toilet..uh..bathroom. You say bathroom, right?" (and the a sound in bathroom is always a bit overexaggerated, like baathroom)
"It's the first day of autumn..(looks at me)..fall."
Australians don't call the season fall, probably because the native flora is evergreen, so there is relatively little falling being done. Also, they don't wait for some big fancy solstice or equinox to change the seasons. Dec. 1 = summer; March 1 = fall, oops, I mean autumn; June 1 = winter; September 1 = spring**.
So, happy first day of autumn!
*unfortuneately they only do this for words like autumn or toilet. The real Aussie slang I usually have to make them repeat 3 times and then ask what they are talking about.
**are seasons meant to be capitalized?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
At least they got most of it right, especially that part about the Summer being between December and March :)
Fede
Sneakers, sidewalk, and pants were the big ones when I was in England. And they of course all had to do the SNEEEakers just like baaaathroom. Happy fall!
i still laugh when i remember ian coming to visit us in texas. he and my dad went round and round one morning. poor ian standing there with a used tea bag in his hand asking for the 'bin' and my dad trying to guess what he wanted. -- hello obvious!
i was laughing too hard to help.
i can't remember ever being stymied by the slang in england. but then, i'm very good with context, i can usually guess if it's a word i'm not familiar with.
but complement a brit on his/her pants and you'll certainly get a funny look! -- it sounds to them as if we're talking 'bout somthing gnomes might want in order to make a profit.
Post a Comment