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Aussie Slang

R

roopy

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27,980
'slang' is an english or american term.
The Australian equivalent is 'strine'
 
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R

roopy

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27,980
'crawler' is the ultimate Australian insult.
It was originally used to describe convicts who were on the lowest rung - ones who had no defiance left in them. The photos of the last convicts at Port Arthur that were taken at the end of the convict era and when photography was new are titled 'The Old Crawlers'.
When i was young being called a 'crawler' was fighting words - but no one really knew why - it had just survived as the ultimate insult through the generations.

Another term that has a very different meaning in Australia to the rest of the world is 'bugger' - which literally means someone who will root anything - animals, other men, etc.
In the rest of the world it is a horrible insult, but in a society that came from convicts and was originally 6 men for every woman - 'funny buggers' and 'silly buggers' are mildly disapproved of.
 
R

roopy

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27,980
The 'thumbs up' means 'OK' in America.
The Australian convict meaning was that you intended to perform a homosexual rape.

I remember my teacher at primary school seeing a boy give a 'thumbs up' and he dragged the boy in front of the assembley and declared him a vile little creep and gave him detention at lunchtime for a month.
 
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R

roopy

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27,980
'mate' is a short form of 'shipmate' - a term used by convicts for the people who were on the same convict transport as them.
The convicts were dragged from small communities all over the UK and thrown together in a tiny space for 3 months while they were being taken to one of the most frightening places on the planet, and once they arrived they were kept in the same dorm in Hyde Park Barracks till they were all assigned.
This process caused them to form friendships for life - their shipmates were as close as they had to family.
 
Vossy

Vossy

Bench
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3,440
roopy said:
The 'thumbs up' means 'OK' in America.
The Australian convict meaning was that you intended to perform a homosexual rape.

I remember my teacher at primary school seeing a boy give a 'thumbs up' and he dragged the boy in front of the assembley and declared him a vile little creep and gave him detention at lunchtime for a month.
Click to expand...

:lol: :crazy: i say thats going to come up alot now in the FFB
 
R

roopy

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27,980
Australians claim rhymeing slang as their own - but we got it from cockney convicts.
Cockneys - or people born within sound of the church bells of London - have been doing it for centuries.
 
Nuke

Nuke

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6,086
roopy said:
Australians claim rhymeing slang as their own - but we got it from cockney convicts.
Cockneys - or people born within sound of the church bells of London - have been doing it for centuries.
Click to expand...
Indeed. As (kind of) proof of this, watch 'Austin Powers In Goldmember'. There's a scene where Austin and his dad (played by Michael Caine) are talking in rhyming slang (with general English subtitles!).
 
Frederick

Frederick

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We've got a yank at work who we've been slowly teaching Aussie slang. For the most part he gets it, but he had a bit of trouble with our slang for taking a piss. He always thought that when we said we were "going to have a squiz at something" that we were going for a piss. We told him that the slang term for having a piss is "having a slash" and that squiz means to look at something. But he still doesn't get it. He came out of the toilets one day and said "I just had a wicked squiz in there" :lol:
 
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