Transcript of AE 1434 - Why Are These Galah's Cracking Tinnies? | Does Dad Know It Ep 4

Pete:
G'day, you mob! Welcome to Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go!

Pete:
Dad, how's it going?

Ian:
Pete? Hang on.

Pete:
Oh, he's got to get a drink. Gotta do the...

Ian:
It's compulsory!

Pete:
We're doing a slang. Slang episodes first, Dad.

Ian:
Diet Coke today.

Pete:
I know we're taking it easy.

Ian:
I know. Well, you got to pick up the kids. It's afternoon.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah. True. Okay. All right. So we're doing ten more slang terms.

Ian:
Oh, beauty.

Pete:
Let's just- don't. Stop guessing. You're giving away the content. That's. That's actually the next episode. All right. Galah.

Ian:
Yeah. Silly galah.

Pete:
Yeah. Flaming galah. Is this one that you heard growing up?

Ian:
Oh, yeah.

Pete:
Yeah?

Ian:
A lot. Yeah.

Pete:
What was it...

Ian:
And used.

Pete:
Was it used by everyone?

Ian:
Yeah. Pretty much.

Pete:
Like older generation, younger one..

Ian:
Yeah, older.

Pete:
Men? Women?

Ian:
As a kid, I didn't probably use it, but you just sort of pick it up because it just became it was so common. And so yeah, a bit of background. A galah is a small grey and pink cockatoo in Australia, a parrot, and they have a tendency to feed by roadsides, and they're not very good at taking off. So they get hit by cars a lot. And so I think people always look at them as being a bit stupid.

Pete:
They need a long runway.

Ian:
Yeah. And they also have a reputation for being the clowns of the cockatoo world. Them and corellas because they swing upside down. Yeah. But the galahs are swing upside down on telephone lines and, you know, they're just silly. So.

Pete:
I've seen corellas definitely acting that way, acting a fool, being stupid a lot. And there's always huge groups of them.

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
And I think galas, don't they, don't they mate for life?

Ian:
Yeah. And they...

Pete:
Always 60 or 70 years old.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
They're such beautiful animals. I would, I wouldn't, I'd love one as a pet if it had like maybe a tenth the longevity.

Ian:
Yeah. The fact that you buy a pet in your 30s and it's going to outlive you.

Pete:
Well, if you get it as a baby. I saw a video the other day of someone with a cockatoo and he was like, he's 57. And you're just like, Jesus Christ. Like, that's, that's quite a commitment. I know, that's it. I'll outlive you, mate. All right. So galah, what is a galah? If you use it in terms of slang with a person.

Ian:
It just means it's a stupid person.

Pete:
Yeah. Flaming galah. It used to always be used on Home and Away by Alf.

Ian:
Alf.

Pete:
Because obviously, he couldn't swear on it. It was this G-rated TV show.

Ian:
Yeah. Family.

Pete:
And he'd always be like, he's...

Ian:
Prime time television.

Pete:
His fury. He would always be angry at the kids. He's "Flaming galahs! Flaming mongrels! You flamin' galahs!" Yeah. All right. So it's a polite version of calling someone an idiot effectively.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
So how would you use it in a sentence?

Ian:
Pete, stop being a galah!

Pete:
Yeah, stop being a flaming galah. I love adding 'flaming', flaming galah.

Ian:
You obviously, you obviously grew up in a period where watching Home and Away was a thing. And.

Pete:
Yeah. You had that collocation. It wasn't just a galah, it was a flaming galah. It was effectively the soft version of fucking idiot.

Ian:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 'Ken idiot!

Pete:
You fucking idiot! You flaming galah. And I think too, if you use it on someone, even if they were, you had an angry altercation. They would probably just laugh.

Ian:
They'll just laugh at you.

Pete:
Like, okay, okay. Whatever, mate. That was offensive. All right, number two, crack a tinny. We've just done that.

Ian:
We have. We just did. Yeah. Go back to the start of the episode.

Pete:
I know, so that's to...

Ian:
You can't re-do it.

Pete:
Open a beer can.

Ian:
Yeah. Beer can.

Pete:
I don't know if you'd use a soft drink, would you?

Ian:
No. Well.

Pete:
And they're not made of tin anymore.

Ian:
No, they haven't been made. In fact, they were never made of tin.

Pete:
Now, here we go.

Ian:
Back in the olden days, cans, as in food cans, used to be made of tin. Because tin was a bit cheaper and more easily obtainable than steel.

Pete:
Did it react less?

Ian:
And iron. And it reacts a lot less. Yeah. And, but then steel became a, just a common thing to be made.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Yeah. And back in the sort of 19th, early 20th century that everything became, you know, made out of steel. And so making tin cans were then made out of steel.

Pete:
Mhm.

Ian:
Which of course is a mixture of iron and carbon. And now most cans for drinks are made out of aluminium, but the whole idea of a tin has, or a tinny..

Pete:
Tin can.

Ian:
A tin can, a tinny, is a. Well it's two things. One is, it's a, usually a beer can or it's a, a small fishing boat.

Pete:
Yeah. Okay. Tinny.

Ian:
Which were never made out of tin.

Pete:
Wow. But it's not important.

Ian:
No, it's become...

Pete:
It's become the thing.

Ian:
So yeah, to crack a tinny is to open a beer.

Pete:
I love that idea, too. That crack. Using it as a verb to mean, like crack it open to open a crack in the...

Ian:
Crack is onomatopoeic.

Pete:
Yeah, exactly. It sounds like that, but it's funny because you can 'crack the shits'. You can 'crack the sads'.

Ian:
Yeah, crack the sads, crack the shits.

Pete:
You can 'crack a fat'.

Ian:
Well, at my age, you probably can't.

Pete:
But that was that was a slang term. Sorry, guys, we're getting a bit silly. Crack a fat is..

Ian:
We're not even drinking beer.

Pete:
Crack a fat was a slang term I used in primary school for for boys when they got erections or something. You're talking or joking about erections. I don't think I've used that in 20 something years.

Ian:
How did that come to mind?

Pete:
Well, we're talking about crack.

Ian:
You just you just revert to primary school very quickly.

Pete:
I was thinking, how do we use crack as a verb? Because it's a. It's so it's such an interesting. What is cracker fat? It doesn't make any sense.

Ian:
It makes no sense whatsoever.

Pete:
You definitely don't want to crack a fat.

Ian:
No. Exactly.

Pete:
All right. Anyway. Number three. Fair go.

Ian:
Fair go.

Pete:
Yeah. Fair go.

Ian:
Fair go is giving somebody a, a reasonable opportunity to complete a task.

Pete:
So yeah, fair chance or opportunity..

Ian:
Having a fair go.

Pete:
So you can use it as a sort of noun phrase, but you could also use it as a, an expression, right. It's like, Oh, fair go, mate.

Ian:
There you go. Yeah. Fair go means give me a chance. Like, don't give...

Pete:
Well, give me a break.

Ian:
Don't give me a hard time.

Pete:
Yeah, exactly. I guess what? Yeah. Dad, we were meant to be recording this episode at one. You showed up at 1:03. Like, why did you have to be exactly 1:03? Fair go, mate.

Ian:
I got hold up in the traffic!

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
All the traffic between Ocean Grove and here.

Pete:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Three cars.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Now, this is an interesting one, a muzz.

Ian:
A muzz?

Pete:
M U Z Z. A muzz.

Ian:
Muzz?

Pete:
This is one I don't know.

Ian:
I don't know that! Bullshit.

Pete:
What would you, what would you guess it means then?

Ian:
I have no idea!

Pete:
If it's a noun, a muzz.

Ian:
It's an abbreviation of mullet. The hairdo. No?

Pete:
What if I said, it's. I've been working hard all week. I need a bit of a muzz.

Ian:
I still nfi. No idea.

Pete:
Apparently it means a rest or some downtime.

Ian:
No. Fuck off. I don't know where this one came from. I think ChatGPT's had a conniption.

Pete:
It's not from ChatGPT, I- all the slang terms that I put into my slang book I collected from online resources dictionaries. So they, you know, again, I don't know for certain.

Ian:
.. could be from far North Queensland.

Pete:
Fabricated, but they tended to have come...

Ian:
Oh yeah, somebody will have said it once, but no, I've never heard that. The only time I've ever heard the word muzz is a contraction of the name Murray. So somebody called Murray, How you goin', Muzz?

Pete:
Yeah. My mate from high school was called Muzz. I never knew if that was Murray or Marcus that was getting his...

Ian:
Yeah, well, the only Muzz I've ever known have been called Murray. So.

Pete:
I feel like it has the feeling, too, of it being a word for me or vomit or throw up like, Oh, mate, I'm feeling a bit sick. I think I'm in a muzz. I'm gonna have a bit of a muzz.

Ian:
No.

Pete:
No?

Ian:
No you're stretching. Just delete that one!

Pete:
No, we're not deleting it. It's in there.

Ian:
No, I'm not saying you. We'll leave it in. But you can- the audience can delete it from there..

Pete:
There'll probably be a whole bunch of students here.

Ian:
They'll come back...

Pete:
In Queensland but...

Ian:
Oh, yeah. Come on, mate...

Pete:
We use this all the time.

Ian:
Yeah, have a muzz.

Pete:
Exactly. I hear Aussie saying they're having a bit of a muzz on the weekend to sleep all the time. All right, number five, to rabbit on.

Ian:
Yeah, I think that's what we've been doing.

Pete:
I knew that was coming. What does 'rabbit on' mean, Dad?

Ian:
Rabbit on means to talk rubbish.

Pete:
Talk on continuously, endlessly, but usually about nothing important.

Ian:
It's like, imagine a five year old. Yeah.

Pete:
I know. At the moment it sort of happens with Noah quite a lot.

Ian:
Well, 5 to 7 year olds.

Pete:
Get to the point, mate.

Ian:
Yeah. And then, and then, and then, and then. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but I was just. Yeah, but I was yeah.

Pete:
That's something out of Kath and Kim. I feel like that that's out of Kath and Kim. So how would you use the expression to rabbit on.

Ian:
Oh, you're rabbiting on mate. Give it a fair go!

Pete:
Yeah. You go down the pub, you're hanging out with your mates, having some beers, and one of them starts rabbiting on about some sheila.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Some ladies. Oh yeah. Rabbiting on, having a chat. Having a.

Ian:
You don't, you can't say sheila without a broad Australian accent. You can't say, oh, that sheila over there.

Pete:
Sheila. Sheila means woman by the way guys. And it is, it's one of those weird ones, right?

Ian:
It's not derogatory.

Pete:
Not not inherently any more. Did it used to be?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
No, it was never derogatory?

Ian:
Yeah. Sheila was the feminine of 'bloke'.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Blokes and sheilas.

Pete:
Yeah. But it just became this kind of like if you were to use that now. And women, I think enough women didn't like it.

Ian:
It became bogan-ish. It became bogan-y.

Pete:
Yeah. Well..

Ian:
Whereas bloke didn't. Bloke is still a generic term.

Pete:
I guess sort of like lower class Australia uses sheila and bloke evenly and probably the sheilas, the women, probably don't get offended by it. But if you met middle upper class women and said..

Ian:
Who'd expect to be called a sheila?

Pete:
Yeah. Check this sheila out.

Ian:
Check this sheila out, mate.

Pete:
Excuse me? Like, what did you call me? Oh. Sorry, mate.

Ian:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete:
She's actually..

Ian:
You're rabbiting on now, Pete. What's next? Yeah.

Pete:
She'll be apples.

Ian:
She'll be apples.

Pete:
Yeah. Who's she?

Ian:
Who's she? Apples. What are the apples? Well she'll be...

Pete:
Why is she gonna be an apple?

Ian:
We've talked about this one in a previous episode.

Pete:
She'll be right.

Ian:
Yeah, but. No, but not this thing. But she'll is. It's a generic term for it. It's just it's just changing the pronoun to a gender based pronoun for no apparent reason.

Pete:
And the funny thing is though..

Ian:
And 'he'll be right' doesn't mean the same thing. He'll be right. Definitely means a male person or someone who identifies as a male, whether they be human or dog or anything else, whereas she'll be right is just it's it's a non thing.

Pete:
It'll be okay.

Ian:
Yeah. It's not, it's not like, oh my lawnmower is broken. You go. She'll be right. Won't mean the lawnmower will be broken. It'll be it'll all work out.

Pete:
It's funny isn't.

Ian:
It's what it means.

Pete:
I have a lot of, private students doing English lessons with me at the moment. And one of those recurring things, especially for, say like Portuguese and Spanish speakers is dropping it, not using the pronoun it.

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
Or their, but it in particular. And I'll say something like they'll say something like, was okay, and I'll be like, it was okay, you gotta say it. And they'll be like, who's it? What's it? What is it referring to? And I'm like, everything.

Ian:
Yes. It's the universe.

Pete:
Exactly.

Ian:
It's the universal pronoun..

Pete:
The situation, the whole, the vibe, the whole thing. So she'll be apples.

Ian:
She'll be apples means it'll all be okay.

Pete:
Yeah. I guess because apples are tasty.

Ian:
I don't know where the apples thing comes from. It's not- as far as I know, it's not rhyming slang for anything.

Pete:
Oh, it probably is. Dad, don't, don't- I'll do a quick Google...

Ian:
I just said, as far as I know. So.

Pete:
All right. Like, oh, there you go. Likely comes from rhyming slang, using apples and spice or apples and rice to mean nice. I love that when it's like so far removed from the original term nice that you would never guess.

Ian:
It actually doesn't make any sense anymore.

Pete:
Yeah, exactly.

Ian:
Well.

Pete:
That's why rhyming slang was used quite often. Right? It was a joke. You would come up with. There would be one word like nice. And then you would come up with a phrase like apples and rice, because the second word rhymes with. And then you remove the second word so that it's not obvious.

Ian:
Apples and rice makes no sense either. Apples, apples and spice. Yes.

Pete:
Apples and rice..

Ian:
Because people would have cooked with nutmeg and cinnamon and stuff with apples. But apples and rice. Who cooks apples and rice?

Pete:
I don't know. There's probably a lot of, you know, Asian listeners right now thinking, yeah.

Ian:
A lot of Asians might, but Asians tend not to use rhyming slang in English. I don't want to. I don't want to genericize, please, if you're of Asian origin and you do use those, please let us know.

Pete:
There's, there's this whole underground series of restaurants that just cook things with apples and..

Ian:
Apples and rice, and they call it nice.

Pete:
That's it. Number seven. Give it a burl.

Ian:
Give it a burl. Have a crack. There you go.

Pete:
That's it. Have a crack...

Ian:
Have a go at it. Give it a burl. Yeah. Have a go.

Pete:
Give it a try. Have a go. Give it. Exactly.

Ian:
But it's not a, it's not an encouragement. It's not an instruction. It's my, it's sort of a. Oh, okay. Let's have a go.

Pete:
Isn't it. Don't you think it's an instruction or like an encouragement for like. Yeah. Give it a try, mate...

Ian:
Yeah. Give it a burl. Yeah. But it's, but it's not. Yeah. Right. Let's go.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
It's not a, it's not revving it up. It's just. Oh well let's try.

Pete:
Yeah. I think I had a friend over yesterday who came over to give my guitars a burl. He was like, can I come and hang out and try your guitars out? And I'm like, yeah, come give them a burl.

Ian:
Oh, can you hand me that ten millimetre socket? I've only got an 11. Oh, well, give it a burl! And sort of like,

Pete:
It's not 'try it'.

Ian:
We'll give it a try. You know.

Pete:
I wonder where that one comes from, right. Because...

Ian:
Give it a burl.

Pete:
A burl would be, is that like..

Ian:
I don't know what, a burly.

Pete:
Isn't that the stuff that you put in the water when you're fishing, to like, encourage..

Ian:
It's called berley.

Pete:
Yeah. But like, isn't it..

Ian:
Well, to burl, you're creating a verb out of..

Pete:
What you're doing. You're giving...

Ian:
A verb, to burl.

Pete:
I don't know. So yeah, you give it a burl. Give something a try. Number eight, a corker.

Ian:
Corker? A cracker, a ripper.

Pete:
A corker.

Ian:
A really good one.

Pete:
This is an interesting one where I feel like I would use this mostly for jokes. If someone said a really good joke. Yeah, I'd be like, that's a fucking corker.

Ian:
This is sort of early 20th century.

Pete:
You reckon?

Ian:
Australian.

Pete:
Yeah. Okay. Far out.

Ian:
But but it's it's carried through. People like you used to understand it.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Your average 12 year old kid said, Oh, that's a corker. They'd go, oh yeah, it is. They wouldn't go, what the hell are you talking about? But yeah, it just means a good thing. So it's that standard old, awkward early 20th century language.

Pete:
So someone kicks a really good goal playing AFL. What a corker.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
What a corker.

Ian:
Or if we want to be completely sexist about it. Jeez, that sheila's a corker, mate.

Pete:
Jesus Christ, I would think I would piss myself laughing if you actually said something like that while we were out and about with the family.

Ian:
Yes, I would, but I have heard it said.

Pete:
I don't think you would ever say something.

Ian:
I would not.

Pete:
Hey, Pete, get a load of this sheila, she's a corker!

Ian:
She's a corker!

Pete:
All right, number nine, the bush telegraph.

Ian:
The bush telegraph?

Pete:
Yeah. What's the bush..

Ian:
The bush telegraph is just the, the rumour mill.

Pete:
The rumour mill. It is, you know, gossip or rumours.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Spreading by word of mouth.

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
So I guess what's the telegraph, or a telegraph?

Ian:
Telegraph is an old 19th century form of communication. The original electronic- well, it wasn't electronics, electrical communication, where people used Morse code over an electric wire to communicate. And so the bush telegraph was just person to person.

Pete:
Yeah, in my head, I imagine instead of like poles with an electrical wire going along, you've got people.

Ian:
Hey, Pete, did you hear that Ian's an idiot? Hey, Bill. Ian's an idiot!

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. So how would you use this in an, in a sentence?

Ian:
How'd you find out about that? Oh, the bush telegraph, mate!

Pete:
It's through the grapevine, right? Heard it through the grapevine. All right.

Ian:
That's the 1960s.

Pete:
And I heard it through the bush telegraph. Too many syllables.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
All right. Number ten. Zoomies.

Ian:
Zoomies?

Pete:
Yes, zoomies!

Ian:
That's usually, children or dogs or cats who are just running around like idiots.

Pete:
My cats seem to do it every night at about 9 p.m..

Ian:
We used to call it the Midnight Madness with our cats, where all of a sudden they just go off and they just running up and down the hallway.

Pete:
Isn't that weird that they kind of. The cats in particular, we've got two, right? Peaches and Scrappy. And it's like every time at night they're not doing it during the day.

Ian:
No, no.

Pete:
They don't do it in the morning. But when the evening comes, I don't know if that's like peak circadian rhythm. Like they've just woken up and they're all all of a sudden real frisky and like, it's so funny, you know, Peaches will walk up to Scrap and just give him a look.

Ian:
And they go, Are you ready?

Pete:
And then they just stare at it. And I'm like, I wonder what I think she comes up from the side, shows the side. The ears go back and the tail flicks and you're like, Ooh, this means business.

Ian:
So it's yeah, it's the old signal of I'm going to fight you to Let's go.

Pete:
And she just pissed bolts afterwards. And then he chases her immediately, knowing what's up, what the game is. So how would you use the term zoomies in a sentence?

Ian:
Oh, those cats have got the zoomies! Or the dog running around the backyard chasing.

Pete:
Yeah, they do it too, Labradors, right? Well, they'll just go stupid.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Sometimes you're just like at the beach.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
You take them to the beach and the moment they get there..

Ian:
They just run up and down. It's not like they just. And that's the point, is that it's running backwards and forwards. It's not just you take the dog to the beach and it runs 800m up the beach.

Pete:
No, they do circles around and they'll take something, right? You know, we just have Jasper and Banjo and you would have something or a stick or. And you'd be throwing it with them, and then all of a sudden they'd be like, oh, I might just not give it back to you..

Ian:
Yeah, cause you'll chase me.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Yeah. Which actually, this one I've heard as a, an English expression as well. The English use this one.

Pete:
Yeah?

Ian:
So it's not purely Australian.

Pete:
In the same sense. Well this is always the hardest thing. Because it's, it's, they're Venn diagrams, right.

Ian:
Oh yeah.

Pete:
What is Australia. So many times people will say that's not Australian, that's American. And you're like, yes, but it's slang that's used in Australia. If someone was born here, never heard of America and never left the country. Is that slang they would use?

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
You know, therefore it is Australian. So it didn't necessarily originate here. Americans say..

Ian:
It's self exclusive.

Pete:
Our word, that is our word.

Ian:
Yeah. Look it up in the Macquarie Dictionary, word of the year in about 2020 or 2015 or something.

Pete:
It'll probably be when phones first got a camera on the opposite side. So you could can take a photo of yourself, right?

Ian:
Exactly.

Pete:
So it would be like 2011 or 12 first iPhones or whatever came out. All right. Well, that's this episode guys. Don't forget. Shameless plug. If you want to check out my slang e-book and learn over a thousand different slang terms and expressions used in Australian English.

Ian:
Give it a burl.

Pete:
Give it a burl. Go to www.SlangEbook.com. Okay, one more time. www.SlangEbook.com. Anyway, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Tooroo!

Ian:
Bye!

Pete:
All right, that's it for today. If you found this one helpful, leaving a quick review really does help other learners find the podcast. And if you know someone who's learning Aussie English, feel free to share this episode with them too, mate. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next one.