Transcript of AE 1435 - Buckley's Chance & Budgie Smugglers | Does Dad Know It Ep 5

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!

Ian:
Pete.

Pete:
Did you wear your budgie smugglers today?

Ian:
No! I didn't. I wasn't going swimming. And I actually do wear budgie smugglers when I'm swimming. But.

Pete:
He's a brave man.

Ian:
I am a brave man, but I also wear boardshorts over the top of them.

Pete:
Yeah. That, I definitely would do that. All right, so we're already into number one.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Budgie smugglers,

Ian:
Budgie smugglers.

Pete:
What are budgie smugglers, Dad?

Ian:
Speedos. And Speedo is a, a brand of brief male swimwear.

Pete:
Undies for the water.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Water jocks.

Ian:
Water jocks.

Pete:
Why do we call them budgie smugglers?

Ian:
Because a piece of male anatomy that is obvious when you are wearing a small bathing costume..

Pete:
Especially when you're cold in the water.

Ian:
Is about the size of a budgerigar. For those of us who are well endowed.

Pete:
Speak for yourself! Mine, mine's probably a cockatoo, I think, Dad.

Ian:
A cock or two!

Pete:
That's it. Yeah. That's it. Two of them? Yeah.

Ian:
Boom boom.

Pete:
Yeah. Anyway, so you'll hear this quite a bit in Australia. It tends to be the joke. And it's funny, when I was a kid, I remember growing up and budgie smugglers, Speedos were much more readily used by people. And it was less of a big deal, I think. Well, as soon as everyone's doing it, no one gives a shit, right?

Ian:
Exactly.

Pete:
I mean, you could probably have a society that everyone decides to swim naked, and it'd be weird for the first week. And then after that, you know, like...

Ian:
When I was a teenager, almost nobody wore anything else. If that's not a double negative.

Pete:
Besides Speedos.

Ian:
Yeah, they always wore Speedos or some equivalent of it, as a Speedo is an Australian brand name and it's a worldwide brand name of of swimwear. And they invented the, you know, the underwear-looking swimwear.

Pete:
But yeah, so I remember it at the pool and having to do it for swimming lessons and everything. Always wearing Speedos. But it's funny now it's pretty rare to ever see anyone wearing Speedos. Yeah. It's weird you don't see anyone wearing them anymore. Sometimes you do, but usually they're really buff dudes trying to show off their quads.

Ian:
Or there's something else.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah. That's it. All their swimmers,

Ian:
All the socks stuff.

Pete:
How, how would you use imagine that, you know, it swells up in the water as you're swimming around. It just falls out. Yeah. All right. So, jeez, we're already getting silly. How would you use budgie smugglers in a sentence, Dad?

Ian:
I probably wouldn't, but.

Pete:
Really?!

Ian:
How would one? Yeah, it's just.

Pete:
I think I would be..

Ian:
It's it's it's a jokey expression now.

Pete:
It's a bit of fun.

Ian:
Yeah it is.

Pete:
Was it ever used seriously?

Ian:
No, I don't think it was..

Pete:
It's the whole point. It's meant to be colourful and fun.

Ian:
Yeah, and it's probably only about 20 years old, I reckon.

Pete:
You reckon?

Ian:
Yeah..

Pete:
I remember it definitely made it big time..

Ian:
It certainly didn't exist when I was a child.

Pete:
Okay. It became big when Tony Abbott...

Ian:
Tony Abbott, who was a previous...

Pete:
Prime minister.

Ian:
Prime minister, of ours who was actually a Surf Lifesaver.

Pete:
He was always in the media wearing budgie smugglers.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
On the. And you were just like, unnecessary, buddy. Put it away.

Ian:
Put it away.

Pete:
So, yeah, I think it would be the kind of thing where I'd be at swimming lessons. My kids are in the water. My wife and I are sitting there watching, and some guy just walks out with budgie smugglers, and I'd be like.

Ian:
Yeah...

Pete:
Check it out, mate. Budgie smugglers. Yeah, yeah. Old mate sounds..

Ian:
That's another expression that isn't in here yet.

Pete:
All right, number two. Crikey.

Ian:
Crikey? Crikey. Yeah.

Pete:
This one.

Ian:
That's another elf.

Pete:
I learned about this from Steve Irwin.

Ian:
Steve Irwin!

Pete:
Yeah, the crocodile hunter..

Ian:
Says it on Home and Away as well. Crikey.

Pete:
I guess it's another..

Ian:
Strewth, yeah..

Pete:
Strewth, crikey. Yeah.

Ian:
Yeah. It's just an expression of shock.

Pete:
It's probably related to Christ, right. It's just another way of saying Jesus Christ without..

Ian:
Without that being blasphemous.

Pete:
Yeah, exactly. Okay. So how would you use crikey?

Ian:
Well, if something happened and you went, Oh, crikey!

Pete:
You'd probably. This is the kind of thing I think you would use in front of the kids, right? My kids, if you stubbed your toe. Yeah, exactly. It's fucking cunt. You. I'd be like, uh, Dad, you might want wanna..

Ian:
Children in the room!

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. Yeah. I feel like this is the kind of informal expletive expletive that you can use that isn't going to offend anyone. And you could use it in front of kids. Yeah. You know, so this is, I think, yeah, if you, I think I would probably say biscuits.

Ian:
Biscuits. Yeah. Well that's, that's become famous from Bluey.

Pete:
Exactly.

Ian:
But yeah, crikey was an expression that was used by Steve Irwin a lot. Yeah. And yeah. And I don't know whether he actually ever said it in his normal life but..

Pete:
It became his catchphrase.

Ian:
He used it on his TV show.

Pete:
Crikey!

Ian:
Crikey.

Pete:
Yeah, what a whopper!

Ian:
What a monster crocodile! Crikey, will you look at that monster croc?

Pete:
That's it. All right, number three. Durry.

Ian:
Durry?

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
This isn't Australian, but it gets used in Australia. No, it's a marijuana joint.

Pete:
No?!

Ian:
It is!

Pete:
It's a cigarette.

Ian:
But it's also used as a marijuana. Marijuana joint.

Pete:
Really?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
A durry, definition. I've never heard of it used for marijuana. Really? It says tobacco here.

Ian:
Oh, well.

Pete:
A rolled Indian rug.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Uh. Durry.

Ian:
That's where it. That's where it comes from. It's a rolly.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Roll your own.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah. A durry. I've never heard of it being a joint.

Ian:
Yeah, I know.

Pete:
Cannabis joint..

Ian:
Used cannabis joints, used..

Pete:
Dad in his um...

Ian:
In my, in my youth.

Pete:
Smoking too many...

Ian:
I didn't smoke anything in my youth. I'm an asthmatic.

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. All right. So durry, is this, you hear this much in Australia anymore?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
You just don't hang out with smokers though.

Ian:
Yeah. But I, but I also when I said when I used to hear it a lot, it was people who are rolling their own.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
And often those would be a mixture of tobacco and something else.

Pete:
Yeah. Gotcha. So you were getting just contact highs. You didn't have to smoke it yourself. You just stood next to him.

Ian:
Yeah, exactly. You just hang around.

Pete:
Downwind!

Ian:
And then feel like.

Pete:
Woah! I feel so light..

Ian:
That has actually happened.

Pete:
Oh, very much so. All right. So how would you use this in a sentence, a diary?

Ian:
Uh, can you give us a durry, mate? Yeah, somebody's got a packet of cigarettes out.

Pete:
Give us some ciggies.

Ian:
Yeah. Give us a durry.

Pete:
Yeah. I probably wouldn't use that anymore.

Ian:
Not anymore. But that was commonly used.

Pete:
I know, all right. Number four. Esky.

Ian:
An esky.

Pete:
You'd never use that..

Ian:
In New Zealand. Esky. Esky is a brand name for a passive cooling vessel to keep food and drinks in. So you put ice or freezer blocks in it. And so for keeping food and drinks cool. Usually used in camping or down the beach or at the sporting event or something like that.

Pete:
I have a feeling. So Esky must be a brand, right?

Ian:
It is. Esky is a brand. It's an Australian brand name.

Pete:
And it must have come from something related to 'eskimo', right, which is pretty politically incorrect.

Ian:
Yes, for keeping something cold. Yeah, but can you give me that Inuit device, please? It just doesn't work.

Pete:
Yeah. So I guess it comes from, like, Native Americans...

Ian:
From Eskimo.

Pete:
From Canada. Yeah. That would have had some kind of a very cold box or cold place that they put food, right. But it says, yeah, but far out comes from 1884. Francis Malley launches a sheet metal working business in Sydney, which later expands into household appliances and large ice chests.

Ian:
Yes. Ice chests were called Esky.

Pete:
Malley's used, Malley's uses the name Eskimo for large home ice refrigerators, soon shortening and applying the name Esky. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that was the 1940s. So that was probably way before political correctness came in. They just shortened it.

Ian:
So it's just become the thing now. It's one of those. And it's one of those brand names like Speedos are referring to brief bathing wear.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Rather than the actual brand name. Hoover refers to a vacuum cleaner. Almost nobody uses- Doona...

Pete:
Do you own one of those...

Ian:
Is a brand name of a duvet, as they would call it in Britain, or a, you know, a quilt.

Pete:
Well, I guess it's quilt. There's a bunch of those, right, that become like, verbs. Like, to Google something.

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
You know, I'll Facebook you.

Ian:
Yeah. I googled something on some other search engine. Well, no you won't.

Pete:
Can you imagine that eventually the word 'search online' becomes 'Google'.

Ian:
'to Google'. Yeah it is. Yeah.

Pete:
All right. Number five. Fossick.

Ian:
Fossick?

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Fossick is a legitimate word. To fossick or search for.

Pete:
It is one of those funny things though, where..

Ian:
Usually it's fossicking is usually related to digging.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
As in go fossicking for gold means you're going to go digging around or, fossicking for a pair of socks in the sock drawer.

Pete:
See, that feels like the more slang sort of version. The, the legitimate type. Like actual, what would you say literary version would feel like- Fossicking as in, you're actually lifting up rocks or searching in the bush for something.

Ian:
It doesn't mean that you're you're just wandering through the forest searching. I don't go 'fossicking for an owl'.

Pete:
When you're doing your bird photography! I'm going to go for a bird fossick. You feel like you could use it for..

Ian:
A seagull?

Pete:
Yeah, well, that's, I think a good example might be, you know, I had the garage door open and I'm rummaging through the garage. You might be like, what are you fossicking for?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
You're having a fossick in the garage. What are you looking for? Are you searching for something?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Looking for coins? You're having a. I'm having a..

Ian:
I'm fossicking for coins..

Pete:
In the couch. Yeah.

Ian:
Under the couch cushions.

Pete:
To have a fossick. I feel like that's pretty Aussie, though. If you went to. I think if you said that to an American, they'd be like, you're what?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
You had a fossick? Americans listening, you'll have to let us know. You guys working on your Aussie English.

Ian:
It's one of those things too, that it's the, I can't, I, it's fossicking, is the word that gets used. People don't tend to use the verb 'to fossick'. I'm going to go and fossick. You don't, no. What are you doing? I'm fossicking.

Pete:
Yeah. There must be some really...

Ian:
It's an active verb, not a.

Pete:
There must be some really interesting linguistic type stuff on that, where you've got this word that can be used as a verb, a noun, an adjective.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
But for whatever reason, it ends up only really being used for one of them.

Ian:
Yeah. And in one tense.

Pete:
Yeah. Exactly. Right. All right, number six, give someone a wedgie.

Ian:
Give someone a wedgie.

Pete:
This has two meanings, right? Depending on how you want to use 'wedgie'.

Ian:
A wedgie is a slang term for pulling somebody's, usually underpants or bathers. Or in fact, whatever clothing they are wearing on the lower half of their body, up their buttcrack.

Pete:
Wedging it up their butt cheeks.

Ian:
Exactly.

Pete:
This was something that, again, it's like.

Ian:
It's just, it's a prank. Yeah.

Pete:
It's the language you use at primary school. There needs to be a whole book that's just about primary school.

Ian:
Primary school. Yeah. Give them a wedgie.

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. Oh, mate, I was. I went for a run, and my jokes are giving me the biggest wedgie. Yeah, they're wedged right up my butt crack. So yeah, you would in school, giving someone a wedgie would be that idea of usually..

Ian:
It's usually bullying,

Pete:
Walking up behind the other boys and just pulling their pants up.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
But a wedgie. What else can a wedgie be?

Ian:
A wedge-tailed eagle!

Pete:
Exactly. Yeah.

Ian:
But you tend not to give them to people.

Pete:
When you..

Ian:
Give someone a wedgie! No, thank you!

Pete:
That's it. They pull out the bird.

Ian:
Hand this to you.

Pete:
It's Australia's largest eagle! Give the wedgie a wedgie. Yeah. Okay. All right. Number seven, Buckley's chance.

Ian:
Buckley's. Oh, I think we've talked about this ages ago.

Pete:
Yeah, we talked about this many times.

Ian:
Buckley's chance means you have very little chance of being successful in this venture.

Pete:
So it's one of those ones where I think it's got two different origins, right?

Ian:
Allegedly.

Pete:
Do you want to talk about those?

Ian:
There are allegedly two different origins. I have a preference for the second one, whereas the first one is the one that is usually given, which I think is which I will, which I think is apocryphal. The first one is that William Buckley was the first wild European in what is now the state of Victoria.

Pete:
Wild?

Ian:
Well, he was wild! Not angry wild. But yeah.

Pete:
Just crazy.

Ian:
The first settlement in the state of Victoria was in what now we would call the suburb or town of Sorrento on Port Phillip Bay. It only lasted a few months before they realised, after the first summer, that the water that was there, the little creek that was there, was ephemeral. It was not constant. So they buggered off. But so William Buckley was one of the convicts in this settlement. And he disappeared from the settlement.

Pete:
For 35 years.

Ian:
Was never, was never found by Collins, who was running the thing. And they just left without him.

Pete:
To be fair, they didn't bother searching for him. Really?

Ian:
No. Exactly. It was all, wee! Gone.

Pete:
Keep the change!

Ian:
Assumed he was gone. And 35 years later, he was rediscovered. When the next settlement in Port Phillip Bay, which became the permanent one, came around. And so that whole thing was "You've got Buckley's chance of surviving" was meant you had very little chance to survive.

Pete:
Which is ironic because he did survive.

Ian:
Exactly. Exactly. And it's a one out of one. Yeah. 100% of university tests proved that white men can survive in these conditions. So that's why I think it's apocryphal.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
The second one is that in, and this is a very specific Victorian expression. And so both of these things are true for being Victorian. But in the 1950s, 40s, 50s, 60s, there was a, what we would now call a, sort of furniture shop and it broadened out into including other goods called Buckley's and Nunn. Yeah. As in two surnames. Buckley.

Pete:
And Nunn.

Ian:
Nunn N U double N.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
And, and so I think people looked at that and went, Oh, you've got no chance of that mate, Buckley's and none. You know. It's that so so I, I, I think that's where it has come from.

Pete:
Yeah, you're probably right.

Ian:
But the other one is, is probably a good story.

Pete:
It's funny isn't it. It's like it probably came from that that made more logic, logical sense. But then "Buckley's and none" just became forgotten about. Whereas Buckley's story about him being with indigenous people...

Ian:
But the thing is that when when I was a kid, when you said you, you know, there's Buckley's chance, it was an abbreviation of "you've got two chances here, Buckley's and none". So you've got you've either got no chance of it happening or you've got Buckley's chance, which is, I think, where the William Buckley part came from.

Pete:
Yes.

Ian:
Is that people forgot about the fact that the original expression was, "You got two chances here, mate. Buckley's and none."

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
So.

Pete:
I think that's going to have to be the cover of the episode, Dad.

Ian:
Buckley's and None.

Pete:
Yeah, we spent so much time on it. Number eight. Come a gutser.

Ian:
Come a gutser! That's a ripper! Where did you get that one from? What a corker! Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. He's come a gutsa. You probably haven't heard it before.

Pete:
No, I always thought this was 'come augusta'.

Ian:
No, gutser [gutsa].

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Come a gutser means to have an accident.

Pete:
Yeah. Okay, so fall over or make a big mistake.

Ian:
Yeah, yeah.

Pete:
So how would you use this, come a gutser.

Ian:
Yeah, I was going for this big mark in the footy, mate, and I came a gutser. I just fell and flattened me face.

Pete:
This is one that's outdated, though, right?

Ian:
Oh, yeah. It hasn't been used since the 60s. I don't..

Pete:
By anyone. Dad included..

Ian:
It was a common one. My grandfather used to say it.

Pete:
Yeah, okay. All the time, huh? That's one of the beautiful things I think about slang. Probably happens in any language. It's the speed at which this stuff evolves and changes.

Ian:
Yeah, but things, they make comebacks.

Pete:
Sometimes. Yeah.

Ian:
Like crikey. I reckon crikey was probably something from the early 20th century.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
And then Steve Irwin started saying it and made a comeback.

Pete:
I want 'rack off' to come back.

Ian:
Rack off.

Pete:
That's it. Disappeared in the 90s.

Ian:
Rack off. No, rack off is still- Rack off, mate.

Pete:
Get out of here. Rack off. That was the equivalent...

Ian:
That's not on the list. We've invented a new one.

Pete:
Might be in the next episode.

Ian:
Oh. All right, well, we'll wait for that.

Pete:
No, but. Oh, no, no, no it's not. Yeah, we'll give you a bonus one, guys. Rack off means like, fuck off.

Ian:
Go away. Yeah. Again, it's just a, a way of politely using a swear word.

Pete:
It's funny because..

Ian:
Instead of Fuck off, mate. Or, Piss off mate. It's rack off.

Pete:
You, there's some of these videos.

Ian:
Cause, rack makes no sense whatsoever.

Pete:
There's these videos on YouTube where they show. I think it was Heartbreak High, the TV show and Home and Away. They obviously used the same scriptwriters for these. And so you see the same language coming up again and again and again and again. And they have this compilation of like rack off, rack off or rack off, mate. And clearly it was their chosen way of getting the kids to sort of swear.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
You know, but it was always really funny when you watch these TV shows, especially Heartbreak High, the kids are interacting with one another, having an argument or a fight or something. And they use this really kind of like docile, polite language. And you're like..

Ian:
Yeah..

Pete:
The kids in high school would not..

Ian:
Non-aggressive way.

Pete:
Yeah. They would not be saying...

Ian:
And certainly not when that was made. It wasn't like that was made in the 50s. That was made in the 80s and...

Pete:
80s and 90s. Yeah. No, but I mean, my point is, if I got into a fight, a fist fight with someone, oh, I'm not telling them to rack off.

Ian:
I might have when you were eight years old at primary school.

Pete:
Using stronger language than that. Yeah.

Ian:
Please go away.

Pete:
Anyway. All right. What are we up to now? I've lost my place.

Ian:
You've lost- rack off's not on the list.

Pete:
Number nine. Jack of it.

Ian:
Jack of it. I'm jack of it, mate.

Pete:
Yeah..

Ian:
I'm tired of it. I'm sick of it. I'm. I'm...

Pete:
Fed up.

Ian:
I don't want to have it going on anymore.

Pete:
You use this, don't you? You did say get jack of it.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Get jack- Oh, mate. I'm getting jack of it.

Ian:
Jack of it. Noah!

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
I'm getting jack of this. Shut up. Don't want to pick on Noah, he's a lovely boy.

Pete:
He just keeps coming to mind. He'll come back and listen to these one day, Dad.

Ian:
He will.

Pete:
You'll have, you'll have kicked the bucket. And he'll be like I'm trying to remember grandpa. And he'll be getting.

Ian:
He just pick on me. I mean you pick on him more than I do, so that's alright. You'll still be alive.

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. He'll. Yeah, I'm just imagining him listening to this in 20 years and being like, fuck you, dad.

Ian:
And your father, he can go with you.

Pete:
That's it.

Ian:
I shouldn't laugh.

Pete:
Don't die now!

Ian:
Don't die now. Yeah, exactly. I gotta finish the episode.

Pete:
To be jack of it, to get sick of something. So this one would still be used?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
And then I guess just. Yeah. Staying in the same stream. Number ten. Jackaroo.

Ian:
A jackaroo. Well, it's hardly the same stream. Well, jackaroo- jackaroo is not even a slang term. It's just a, it is a word. It's an Australian word that has a feminine version, a jillaroo.

Pete:
Jack and Jill went up the hill!

Ian:
And Jill, exactly. And it, it means a stockman, a literally a man because a jillaroo would be a stock woman. So somebody who's usually in country, outback areas, rounding up cattle or sheep.

Pete:
Yep. It's funny that they combine it with kangaroo.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Jackaroo.

Ian:
Jackaroo. I don't know where the jack bit came from, but.

Pete:
Well they would have just said, you know, every jack and whatever you would have just used it for talking about blokes, right. But yeah, so a good example would be "He spent two years working as a jackaroo in the Northern Territory."

Ian:
And it became a verb as well. "What have you been doing? I've been jackarooing up the territory."

Pete:
Really? Okay.

Ian:
Yeah. I had a friend who would actually tell you that. That, that's what he did. After he left school. "I went jackarooing in the territory."

Pete:
Yeah. It sounds like you've been stealing something.

Ian:
Yeah. Jack...

Pete:
I've been jacking off. Jacking all the cars,

Ian:
Jack those cars, yeah.

Pete:
All right, that's probably enough for this one. We'll see you in the next one. Oh! I gotta say, before you...

Ian:
Do your thing!

Pete:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me a second to prepare myself. If you want to learn Aussie slang, check out the Aussie slang book. You'll learn over 1000 slang terms and expressions. Go to slangebook.com. Once again, that is www.slangebook.com. The link will be in the description. Go check it out. I think it's priced at about 16 bucks. So yeah, good little deal. Rip a deal. Anyway, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

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.