On 26th January every year, Aussies celebrate Straya Day (Straya short for Australia, because it's how many Aussies pronounce Australia).
Aussie is Australian slang for Australian, both the adjective and the noun, and less commonly, Australia.
Mate. “Mate” is a popular word for friend. And while it's used in other English-speaking countries around the world, it has a special connection to Australia. In the past, mate has been used to address men, but it can be gender-neutral. In Australia, you'll also hear mate used in an ironic sense.
People from Australia call their homeland “Oz;” a phonetic abbreviation of the country's name, which also harkens to the magical land from L.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
5. Sheila = Girl. Yes, that is the Australian slang for girl.
Australians use a couple of other colloquial words for a hen's egg. The Australian English word googie or goog is an informal term that dates from the 1880s. It derives from British dialect goggy, a child's word for an egg. A closer parallel to the jocular bum nut, however, is the word cackleberry.
That being said, let's start with something most of us will probably have sitting in the fridge or pantry: ketchup. Ketchup is underrated. We call it tomato sauce in Australia. Or just “sauce”.
The terms pommy, pommie, and pom used in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand usually denote a British person.
Bludger. (Noun) A lazy person. “I'm running around like a headless chook organising this bloody barbie, and Johnno's just sitting there like a bludger!”
The most common verbal greeting is a simple “Hey”, “Hello”, or “Hi”. Some people may use Australian slang and say “G'day” or “G'day mate”. However, this is less common in cities. Many Australians greet by saying “Hey, how are you?”.
Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
Despite cheerful jabs about Poms and criminals, Australian-British relations are usually considered pretty affectionate. Every couple of years we like to remind ourselves of our close ties: when the Commonwealth Games are on, maybe, or every time there's a new something Royal — baby, wedding, stamp.
The most common explanation is that it's a reference to Australia's past as a convict colony. “Pom” is supposedly a bastardised acronym, meaning “prisoner of Mother England” or “prisoner of Her Majesty”.
Australian and New Zealand English uses "chips" both for what North Americans call french fries and for what Britons call crisps. When confusion would occur between the two meanings, "hot chips" and "cold chips" are used.
Aussie Word of the Week
Australia's colourful bank notes are known by many colloquial names. The twenty-dollar note is referred to as a lobster, while the fifty-dollar note is called a pineapple, and don't we all want to get our hands on a few jolly green giants, that is, hundred-dollar notes?
In Canadian English, and often in Australia and New Zealand, the term 'mall' may be used informally but 'shopping centre' or merely 'centre' will feature in the name of the complex (such as Toronto Eaton Centre).
While some Australian speakers would pronounce “no” as a diphthong, starting on “oh” as in dog and ending on “oo” as in put, others begin with an unstressed “a” (the sound at the end of the word “sofa”), then move to the “oh” and then “oo”.
ankle-biter – a small or young child.
Decoding Australia's colourful food slang. "I could eat the bum out of an elephant. Let's have some tucker." Translation: I'm really hungry.
The results revealed that women and men find different accents attractive, and the only common accents on both lists were Australian and Southern. While men desired Israeli and Colombian accents the most, this was not mirrored amongst the women who were surveyed, who ultimately preferred British and Spanish accents.