Daily Dirt: Crikey, how can you not love those Australians?

Daily Dirt for Wednesday, March 27, 2024

For the record, I’ve never worn a pair of budgie smugglers … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 903 of The Daily Dirt.

1. For as long as I can remember, I have had a love affair with how Australians speak because of both the accent and the quirky Aussie slang. When I lived in Ohio, I had good friends who had moved there from Australia and New Zealand. Many a conversation was spent laughing out loud at and with my buddies from the land down under.

Many Americans’ infatuation with the Aussies was heightened in 1986 when “Crocodile Dundee” became a smash hit at the box office. Remember the first time you heard Paul Hogan say, “Throw some shrimp on the barbie?”

Writer Amy Jones of nomadsworld.com may have captured our love affair with Aussies and their language the best: “When you learn English, you’re taught how to speak and write ‘proper’ English. Then you visit an English-speaking country and start hearing some very strange slang terms. Australian slang is certainly interesting!”

Here are some examples:

• Accadacca – How Aussies refer to the famed Australian band AC/DC
• Ankle biter – Child
• Billy – Teapot 
• Bloody oath – “Yes” or “It’s true.” “You right, mate?”… “Bloody Oath!”
• Bogan – This word is used for people who are, well, let’s say, rednecks. Or, if you like, just call your friends a bogan when they are acting weird.
• Brekky – Breakfast
• Brolly – Umbrella
• Bruce – An Aussie bloke
• Budgie smugglers – Speedos
• Choccy biccy – Chocolate Biscuit
• Chook – Chicken
• Clucky – feeling maternal
• Cobber – Very good friend. “Alright me ‘ol cobber.”
• Crack the shits – Getting angry at someone or something
• Drongo – A fool. “‘Don’t be a drongo, mate.”
• Dunny – Toilet
• Facey – Facebook
• Lappy – Laptop
• Maccas – McDonald’s
• Piece of piss – Easy
• Runners – Trainers, sneakers
• Shark biscuit – Kids at the beach
• Sheila – A woman
• Snag – Sausage
• Stubby – a bottle of beer
• Yous – (“youse”) Plural of you

2. Here’s a few names you can call certain co-workers who fit the ensuing definitions:

• Kit Kat: Someone who always needs a break. (So that’s why David Adam is always giving me a Kit Kat!)
• Justin: Those who do “just enough” not to get fired.
• Motion Light: Those who only work when they see someone.
• E.T.: Those co-workers just want to go home.
• Blister: Those who always seem to show up when the work is done. 

3. My choice for the top “feel good” songs from modern rock era, which I call the “Great Eight”:

• 1. “Livin’ On A Prayer,” by Bon Jovi: You’ll likely wind up with a sore throat belting out the words to this classic over and over and over … as loud as you can, of course.
• 2. “Walking On Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves: “If this song were a color, it would be yellow, because it’s impossible not to feel sunny and positive after you listen to it,” says Maddy Kinkead on relationshipsurgery.com.
• 3. “Sweet Caroline,” by Neil Diamond: “So good! So good! So good!”
• 4. “Dancing Queen,” by ABBA: Turn the volume way up, and everyone join together for those choruses.
• 5. Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” by Cyndi Lauper: Remember when this was one of the WWF pro wrestling anthems back in the 1980s?
• 6. “I’m A Believer,” by the Monkees: ” … then I saw her face!”
• 7. “Come On Eileen,” by Dexys Midnight Runners: Someone once said it’s scientifically impossible to listen to this song and feel sad.
• 8. “Hooked on a Feeling,” by Blue Swede: “Ooga-chaka, ooga ooga ooga chaka!”

Honorable mention

• “Eye of the Tiger,” by Survivor:  “This is another song that’s good for the gym or a karate class,” according to Kinkead. “It will make you feel like you can chop a block of solid wood with your hand.”
• “Good Vibrations,” by the Beach Boys: One of the first four .45 RPM singles I bought on a Friday afternoon in the fall of 1966. One of this legendary band’s best efforts ever.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
As soon as I finished that third thought, I immediately went to YouTube and played the “Livin’ On A Prayer” video. And Katrina and the Waves. And Dexys Midnight Runners.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Doesn’t calling someone a Kit Kat mean you want to break their neck because they’re so helpless operating a computer? Or maybe Steve is a drongo? Please don’t let him wear a pair of budgie smugglers.