This is a call to arms.
Ladies, gentlemen and genderfluids of the blogsphere, the time has come to resist the plague of Americanisms that have forced our Australian idiom to the point of extinction. It's time to fight back.
It's time to speak of mates, not buddies. Of rooting, not fucking. Of shed-u-als, not sked-yuls.
When was the last time you experienced something that was bloody grouse, or that you had a bonzer weekend? If you've been in a blue lately, did you dong the bastard? Have you been full as a tick, or full as a goog this weekend?
Who's with me?
11 comments:
I'm with you, boyo. Even though I'm not a proper Australian.
That's a bunch of 'em. Oops, I meant heaps...
Fuckin' oath.
actually, i was pissed as a nit.
On the face of it, Ricardo, I can do nothing but concur. We have a lexically and culturally rich history which is swiftly and certainly being devoured by the might of American popular media. Like, totally.
But I do worry, if we try to stem the tide and return to a Golden Era of Australian voices, do we run the risk of fossilising ourselves?
The thing that makes me fret is: what contemporary culture do we actually have? Apart from a few critics, I can think of few public voices that have become nothing but fucking conservative. In the mid of all this American din, we’ve failed to develop anything truly Australian. So, all we are left with is a raft of Crocodile Hunter platitudes and some shit columnists who bang on about their vile children.
SO, I guess I’m with you in trying to forge ahead to a new tomorrow and making some Australian noise.
After all of this, it must be said, I saw a great new Oz film on the weekend. Have you seen West?
Helen: Haven't seen West yet, no; was supposed to attend a screening in St Kilda last night but in the end the cross-town PT-trek made me wimp out. I'm gonna see it at the Westgarth tonight instead. (Have seen Romulus, My Father and Clubland though; both good in different ways, although flawed and lacking real zest.)
And to a degree, I concur with your concerns about what culture we have of our own to offer up in the place of rampant Americanisms. I also worry about trying to hold back the evolution of culture in an artifical way. That said, I've read some excellent YA fiction in recent years, and also think that there's a difference between putting on the brakes, on nudging the steering in a new direction...
Alison, paul, paul and mskp: An army of bloggers cannot fail!
Can you, like, do away with, like, the over-use of, like, like, as well?
I can bloody try!
I was under the impression that the vast majority of non-American idioms Australians use are actually lower class Brit and Irish idioms (some which have died out in their home country). Riff-raff is a good movie for this -- its subtitled for some English spekaing audiences even though the idioms are likely to be familiar with Australians. It would be nice to know what the actual etymology of most idioms are before calling them Australian. Your example sched-u-als, for instance, is sure not to have an Australian origin (go speak to a Brit). The word "mateship" originates from well before white people made it to Australia.
In any case, I agree with you 199? poem/manifesto, I wouldn't ever use the word mate, except for describing Discovery channel type things. Maybe your attitudes on it have changed, but mine haven't.
I'm also not sure how appropriate many "Australian" idioms are for non-white social out-groups. A lot of these idioms seem to me to be representative of dumb-ass exclusionary Australian culture. I personally wouldn't use them (except by accident) and when I see other social outgroups using them to blend in, it often feels to me like the homogenization of different value systems and henceforth the acceptance of many of the negative aspects of Australian culture and loss of positive aspects of the other. It reminds me of the assimilation debate. Somehow or other, you are good if you behave like the average moron, but in case you don't, you aren't Australian enough. Not that I care about the latter. These sorts of idioms appear to capture these unfortunate ideals.
I wouldn't worry too much - I used to work with Australian English professionally (specifically words starting with D, and fauna) and it's alive and well, particularly in youth culture. People understand American English and may well use it, but they also understand and use Australian English, even when they're not aware they're doing so. My favourite Australian word is 'coronial'.
I'm sort of with Conrad when it comes to mate. It still conjures up a whole sexist exclusive homosocial nightmare for me, even though some woman do use it these days. I guess (or should I reckon, I know I used to) buddy is much the same really.
As usual I have a few conflicting feelings. On the one hand part of me does like people to talk proper (there is no such place as Beige-ing, it's Bei-jing dammit! Same goes for Straya), but on the other hand I say bring on the mongrel mish-mash of Ameriko-Brit-Oz-slang. Purity of language is only for Nationalists.
Smash the nation state!
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