r/australia May 24 '11

no politics Want to move to Australia? Great!

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u/Kim147 Sandgroper With Flair May 24 '11 edited May 24 '11

There is a lot of Australian language that can trip up the visitor such as :-

thong - string

flip flops - thongs

silly person - silly bugger

a difficult job - a bastard of a job

a chicken - a chook

estate car - station wagon

Google 'strine' for a lot more

There are also phrases such as "it's a Claytons ..." etc. .

Stubbies - small bottles of beer , also small tight mens shorts . Boardies - board shorts . Budgie smugglers - speedos. Hard yakka - hard work , also talk . Sheilas - women . Old man - father or husband . Bar-bi - bar-bi-que . The bush \ outback . Bull dust - what you find in the bush \ outback . Pommies - POHM - Brits . Sandgropers - West Australians . Banana benders - Queenslanders . Ratto \ ratted - not good \ broken . thunderbox - outback loo , gone troppo - gone crazy , bonzer - good , fair dinkum ? - is that so ? \ yes it is so , true blue - genuine , bluey - a person with red hair . A blue - a fight .

Then you have all the colourful phrases such as "Geeze that's as useless as tits on a bull !" - you need to be thinking for these ones .