Transcript of AE 1307 - 9 DIRTY Australian Slang Words That CONFUSE Americans!

G'day you mob. Pete here. Welcome to Aussie English. Today I'm going to be reacting to an interesting video. This one is from Kinda Australian on YouTube. Dirty-ish Aussie Slang Words That Confuse Me as an American. Let it begin.

G'day, guys. Welcome back to the channel. My name is Caitlin. I'm an American writer living in beautiful Sydney, Australia, and there are some dirty Aussie words that really do confuse Americans. Some of them might not even be that dirty here in Australia, but in the States? Oh boy, these can be dirty, filthy, sexy, offensive.

This is what you're here for, guys. This is what you're here for. Come on. All right, let it rip.

The list goes on. So let's dive into some dirty Aussie words that confused this American the first time I heard them. Grab a bickie, grab a cuppa, and let's get right into this video.

Man, look at that. She's she's a pro with Aussie slang already, so she clearly knows her stuff. She's already saying bickie, biscuit, and cuppa, a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Good on you!

Number one. And I'm not afraid to say the word, but I am going to have to censor it for you too, because it doesn't like it. Number one is the C word. In the States, it is probably the most offensive thing that you can call a woman. And in all fairness, it's pretty offensive here in Australia too, when you use it in that context. But other than the insult and the female body part, that word typically isn't used in the States.

We've talked about this recently a lot, and there seems to be a bit of a divide between men and women, which is unsurprising, and it's what I expected. But Australian men and women I have seen in my comments section, you know, I would never say this word. I've lived in Australia, I never hear this word. There's a whole bunch of women, in particular older women saying, you know, I would never do this. And it's like, I know, I understand. There's plenty of people who would never use this, plenty of people who don't swear at all. I totally get it. I totally respect you. But I think you must admit there is a sizeable proportion of the population in Australia that do indulge in the odd c-bomb. Okay, it's one of those things I always tell students, you know, I teach Australian English. If in doubt, go without. If you don't feel like it's something you should say. If you're worried people will get offended. If you're worried, the context is, you know, you're at work or something. Don't do it. But if you're with mates, you feel comfortable and you know what their personalities are like. They know what you're like and you're having a bit of a joke. I reckon, unleash, you know! A good place to start is just asking them, how do we use the word cunt? How do we say it? How do we say it like an Australian, you know? How do we do it?

Here in Australia, while people don't go saying it every other word, it is a lot more common here. And it's typically in conjunction with some sort of descriptor. Whether you're a mad C-word, a funny C-word, a sick C-word, those are all actually compliments.

They are! They are! That's true! So my dad always makes this point. He always says there's a big difference between being like a stupid cunt and a mad cunt, or a dumb cunt and a sick cunt or a funny cunt. So in those in those phrases, we're effectively using the word cunt and oh God, I even I feel bad just dropping it that many times. Youtube's probably going to demonetise this one. So it's interesting how we're using the c-bomb there to refer to a person. So it would be like mad guy, sick guy, funny guy, mad man, mad person, mad dude, mad bloke. And we're just using cunt as a way of saying person. That's he's a cunt. All right. I think we're gonna have to go for a while without talking about this, this word. It is one I've heard. Americans. You guys will have to comment. Do you ever hear it? Do other Americans say it? If I was in America and I was just my usual self with American friends, and I was dropping the C bomb, whether or not trying to insult anyone from time to time, would they totally lose it?

But if somebody is just flat out calling you a straight up C word, that's clearly an insult. You kind of have to take the word in context to how it's being used in the situation that it's being used in. If you're fighting with somebody and they drop the C word, chances are it's not going to be a compliment.

Now, one thing to mention here, to which I don't think I have mentioned in previous videos, I will use the word with mates, men. Men. I will use it with men. I think the only time you would ever use this on a woman is if she's the worst possible human being you could imagine. And it has a different gravity. It has a different punch when you use this on a woman, because it's obviously associated with sexual organs and everything like that. So there is this sort of sexist nature to the language, which when obviously you're using it with a man, it's not it doesn't carry that same weight. And it's ironic. You can call a guy a dick, you can say he sucks balls. He can use all these ones that use male anatomy. And it's not considered sexist. But when you use that kind of language on a woman, you're going to offend everyone. I think pretty much everyone. Reserve that for the worst possible imaginable woman, and even then you're going to make yourself look pretty bad, I think, if you use it in that context. So yeah, that's the only caveat I have there.

But when I first came over here, I was surprised to hear people actually use it and use it in multiple different contexts. Number two is root, which is very different compared to The States. Here in Australia, they are not going to root, root, root for the home team like you hear in that old school song Take Me Out To The Ball Game. No. Root here is a very crude, kind of bogan way of saying fuck. Like, the crude, actual action of fucking. Not just fuck this, fuck that.

Yeah. So we would never use it as a synonym for fuck in terms of Oh, fuck. Or fucking hell. You would never say root. You would never say Oh root or Rooting hell. You use it to talk about the act of having sex, right? To have a shag. To have a root. To have sex. To fuck someone. To root someone. And again, it is very informal. It's less offensive than saying fuck. I think, you know, if you were trying to lighten things up a little bit and not use the F-bomb, you'd probably say, you know, had a little cheeky root in the weekend. It's kind of it's less offensive, but I think there's still plenty of people who'd be like, why are you talking about this at all with me, you know? So again, context dependent, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna use it with friends. You're gonna use it when you're obviously talking about these things that you may not talk about with just anyone. But yes, it is always something that makes us laugh when we hear Americans say things like, I'll be rooting for you. And in our mind, you know well when they say, I'm rooting for the team. You know, I'd be like, how is having sex with someone going to help? How is that going to help me? How is that going to help my team win? You know, I'd rather you barrack for them. I'd rather you support them. You don't have to have sex for my team to win sport. So, rooting for, or you know. Yeah, give them a root. I don't know how you guys use it. It is one of those things that just makes us laugh.

When we went to Canada when I was younger, I know there's a brand over there that's called Roots, I think. And it's like a beaver. I think the mascot is a beaver, which has other connotations, right. So I remember, I remember buying up one of those jumpers, like a surf kind of brand jumper, like Quiksilver or Rip Curl, and wearing that around with pride in Australia. And everyone just being like, where'd you get that? Canada, man. Canada. Canada. The other thing is there's, there's jokes in Australia that we'll use with that. Like, what's that wombat joke, that it's like, I have to look it up. Here we go. I mean, here's the badge, right? There's this ongoing joke with the wombat. It eats roots and leaves, or it eats roots, shoots and leaves. The, yeah, I'm sure you can work out what the idea is there, but yeah, obviously you'll get the context of roots.

So when you talk about Aussies rooting or having a root, they are not talking about cheering, they're talking about sex.

I should mention we also refer to the roots of a plant with roots as well. So you can use it in that sense. And it's not, it's obviously not offensive.

Number three is rubber. And to Aussies this is completely innocent. To Americans it is not. Rubber in the States besides material means condom. So when you're in Australia and there are little kids asking for a rubber, clearly that's not what they're talking about. A rubber in Australia is an eraser. So something that is completely innocent to Aussies confuses the hell out of Americans the first time they hear it, especially because it could be coming out of a little kid's mouth.

I never thought about that before. But yeah, in primary school in particular, obviously this is your first kind of interaction with pencils. I think, you know, you first start using a pencil to write and draw and then you get your pen license. I wonder if they still do that. And I remember we would always have these rubbers, right. They would have one end that was like grey and the other end that was white and would slowly become grey as you rubbed out graphite. And yeah, they were rubbers. I mean, we knew what an eraser was, but we'd always say rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber. Whereas for yeah, condoms you would say condom. Connie, I'm trying to think. Do we have any other slang terms for condom? A wetsuit, I don't know, can you guys think of any other ones? And what am I missing? But yeah, we just say condom or Connie from memory. But rubber. It's always weird when you hear Americans using that in the opposite way, because you're just like they're about to have sex. Why does he want to suddenly go and get a rubber? Is he going to do some riding?

Number four is pash, and I heard this a few times before. I actually understood what it meant. Pash just to make out. But the reason it's pash is like it's passionately making out. So shortening it to pash. I swear Aussie slang is just on another level.

It's cool! We can use this as a verb, to pash someone. You might give someone a pash. You can have a pash, so we can use it as a noun. And it would come from passionate or passionately, right? They're making out passionately. They're having a pash, they're passion. And you can get pash rash if someone gives you a hickey, you know they're sucking on your neck and you get that bruise. That's a pash rash. This is language you would probably use when you're younger. I think you would just say make out or kiss or snog. You can use as well to have a snog, to snog someone. That's also to pash. To have a pash. Yeah, I think that's sort of it. But I haven't used pash rash in probably 15 years. I haven't talked about that sort of thing since I was in high school.

Number five, and this one gets Americans in trouble all over the world, not just in Australia is Fanny, which is also an unfortunate nickname for any woman named Francine.

We always understood this from American TV shows. What is it called? The Nanny, right. Was it was she called Fran? Fran? No. Is it The Nanny? Was it that where she's called Fanny? I can't remember, man. But anyway, we always heard it. You know, you would hear people called Fanny and you would laugh because it's a vagina. It's a vagina. It's what young kids would refer to a vagina as. It's like saying willy for boy. It's language that adults don't really use. I wouldn't even say it with my daughter, who's, you know, three years old. We would just use the appropriate anatomical language, funnily enough. But yeah, whenever you hear about grown men in America like Joe Rogan, I think I heard once back in the day talking about wearing a fanny pack and you're just like, What? And then you realise he's talking about a bum bag. It's a bum bag. I don't know why we call it a bum bag. Probably makes about as much sense as a fanny pack, because you guys use fanny for butt, even though the pack is kind of in front of you. So it would almost make more sense if it was us calling it a fanny pack for women wearing it because it's in front of their, their fannies. It always made us giggle. Growing up, you would just be like, it's not a butt, it's not your ass, it's a woman's genitals.

But Fanny in Australia and the UK and I think a few other countries is actually a woman's vagina.

Let's just, let's have a bit of fun here. So again, forgive my, um, ChatGPT. It's in Portuguese but, why do Americans call vagina? No, that's that's us called bums. Fannies. Let's see, what does ChatGPT have to say here? In American English, fanny is used to mean buttocks or bum or arse, but in British and Australian English it has a much more explicit meaning, referring to female genitalia. The difference likely emerged due to divergent slang development over time. Yes. So our slang just diverged and changed. The American usage of fanny for bum seems to have its origins in the 20th early 20th century slang. It's thought to be a playful, diminutive term, possibly from the name Fanny. Okay, so it came from a woman called Fanny, which was a popular female name at the time in the US. The term stuck with its light hearted non-explicit, meaning so Americans continue to use it without any awkward implications. In British and Australian English, though, it developed its own meaning. So when these slang differences crossed paths, it can create some awkward and funny misunderstandings. Why do Australians and Brits call a vagina a fanny? You know what? They still haven't really gotten to the bottom of this difference.

Shorten the explanation. Come on, come on. Chatgpt. In British and Australian English, fanny came to mean vagina in the late 19th century. So even earlier. There we go. We got there first, guys, likely as playful slang. It was a common nickname for Frances. Oh, there you go. And like many names, it evolved to have a cheeky risqué meaning. So that is so funny. In Australian and British English, the word fanny, meaning vagina, came from a male name Francis, and in American English the word fanny, meaning bum, came from the female name Fanny. Which, yeah. What was, what was that long for? I can't even remember now. The name Fanny is traditionally short for Frances. So was it a female name or a male name? Either way, that's really funny that it came from the same place, it seems, but became different parts of the body depending on which country you're from or what dialect of English you speak, the more you know.

So when a woman in the States is wearing a fanny pack, in Australia and other countries, it's actually called a bum bag. But you do not want to call it a fanny pack over here, you are going to get laughed at so much.

That'd be like, why have you got a pack of fannies in your bum bag, mate? Yeah, I think they've gone out of fashion. It's kind of like that old getting your hoodie and tying it around your waist, you know? I mean, some people do it, but bum bags were definitely much more popular when I was a kid. I haven't seen many around. Maybe it's a kids thing nowadays where kids use bum bags much more frequently. Maybe we'll go through that phase soon with mine.

Number six is Randy. So if your name is Randy, I feel so bad for you if you come to Australia. Randy is a word that people will use to describe being aroused or turn on. You're getting randy. You're feeling randy. So you can see why if somebody is named Randy and they come over here to visit, Aussies are probably going to pick on them.

It's like being horny. You want sex? That's what randy means. We probably got first exposure to it when I was a kid watching South Park. And is it Stan's dad who's called Randy? And they just always use it, and eventually it gets to the point where you're no longer thinking, Oh god, yeah, you know, lol the joke. But when you first hear something like that. You are just kind of like, why would you call your kid that? Right? Why would you call your kid that?

So I feel so bad if anybody's named Randy and they decide to visit anywhere outside of the US, because in the US that word is just a name. And number seven is crackon. Aussie's probably know what that means to Americans. It goes way over our heads. Kraken is something I'd heard a few times until I actually had it explained to me. At some point I thought crackon was like, okay, maybe having a joke or making fun of somebody a little bit, which so makes sense because of how Aussies do crackon, which is flirting. Aussies are notorious for having that slightly dry, sarcastic sense of humour, of taking the piss out of each other, of making fun of each other. So to my American ears, it does make sense. That crackon would come across as picking on somebody, teasing somebody, joking with somebody, when in Australian crackon actually means to flirt.

It's not flirt as much as hit on. Yeah, you can flirt with someone and it can kind of be innocent, if you know what I mean. Like, you could just be a flirtatious kind of person, but you wouldn't say if someone was just that kind of personality where they're being flirtatious, but they're not really trying to get into your pants, that they're cracking on to you. You know? I mean, cracking on to someone is generally you are sexually interested in them, romantically interested in them. You want to hook up with them then and there. You want to have a relationship with them, but you are at that moment trying to flirt with them with the intention of it going further, right? You're hitting on someone, you're cracking on to someone. We can also use the verb crack, and this is something I haven't used since I was a kid either. When I was a kid, we would have the phrase to crack a fat, and that was to get an erection. That's just. It sounds so childish. This is childish language. You wouldn't say that nowadays, right? Imagine you're a, you know, a young man, and you're getting down and dirty with with a beautiful woman, and you're like, you know, I'm just waiting to crack a fat, you know? Give me a sec.

Has he cracked a fat? You wouldn't use that language as an adult. I think it's very childish. It would be more something kids would use when poking fun at other kids. If for whatever reason, you know they had cracked a fat, they had a stiffy. We've got loads of those sorts of slang terms. Another one. What a boner, right? But yeah, to to crack a fat. I don't know where it comes from. It sounds so stupid when you literally think of. Like how? Like if you got fat out of, say, you know, a cow or something and you had it in front of you, you can't really crack it, right? Maybe you cooked the fat and then the fat is, like, solid, and then you crack it. Like, why does crack mean to become erect again? You know, I should have looked these up ahead of time, though I didn't know it. But you'll have to ask your Australian friends, how would you use crack in Australian slang and see what they reply?

So if you're out of the pub with somebody and some guy comes up to your friend and starts cracking on to them, they're not necessarily joking with them, although they probably are because they're trying to flirt with them. Number eight is pissed. Typically in the States, pissed just means you're angry. Normally. Like you're really angry if you're pissed, or you're pissed off. In Australia, pissed also means you're drunk. So if somebody's in the pub is pissed. There's a small chance they could be angry, but most likely people mean that they're saying that they're drunk.

We use piss a lot of different ways in Australian English, and I guess that's an adjective in this case. So it's sort of like piss to be pissed. You are pissed, I am pissed. You could be angry. You could be furious. It tends to be that you're enraged. You're pissed. I'm pissed, man. Someone ran into my car. I'm pissed, I am pissed. It's like livid when we're drinking, though. You can be pissed once you're drunk. As she says. But you can refer to alcohol as piss, so we can use it as a noun. I'm going to have some piss. I'm going to drink some piss. You guys are getting on the piss tonight. You're getting on the piss. As to drink alcohol, you can say that someone's weak as piss, they're weak as piss. And that just means obviously very weak. They could be a coward. Ah, you're weak as piss, mate. Weak as piss. You can take the piss, that is to joke with someone. To take the Mickey, to take the piss out of someone, to just take the piss. To tease someone. To make fun of someone. There must be a whole bunch that I'm missing again, you guys. You help me out in the comments. If you can think of other ways that Australians use the word piss. You could tell someone to piss off. Go away. Piss off! And you're not meaning like, urinate and walk away from me. It has nothing to do with urination and going to the toilet. It just means go away. Piss off, Nick off! Go away! Piss off, mate. So we use it in so many different ways in Australian English. I don't know why. It just obviously caught on. Sounded good. And it's fun to say piss, piss. Piss! Piss!

Which is also why people say, like, I'm getting on the piss this weekend basically means I'm planning on drinking a lot this weekend. And number nine, I feel like you guys already knew that this one was going to make the list. And that is thongs. Yes, it confuses so many Americans when they hear Aussies talking about needing to grab a pair of thongs. Because in the States, we all know that thongs are called flip flops, and thongs in the States are typically what you call g-strings here in Australia.

This, yeah, G-string. Oh my God. There's a really funny Carl Barron joke. You guys should YouTube Carl Barron and he's an Australian comedian. Bald dude. Better looking than me. A bit older from Queensland. He has a joke about thongs and um, effectively when he goes to the US, he's like.

You know what you call thongs over here? Women's g-strings? No, but he told me that the first time I got here.

That is one thing where when we hear Americans saying, thong. Thong. You're just like, God damn, why do they keep talking? Like why? Why, why? You know, it's not a G-string. It's a it goes on your foot, it goes on your foot. And that song was that Usher? Nelly? One of those artists back in the day. That thong thong, thong thong thong thong. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that that always made us laugh as well. We were just like, why is he singing about beach shoes?

And G-strings in the States are also g-strings in Australia. Which, when you think about it, given the structure of an actual thong, it does make sense because that little bit does go between your toes to keep everything together. It makes sense to call them thongs. But to Americans it is going to take a little while to get used to hearing and eventually saying, thongs.

We gotta, we gotta ask ChatGPT this too. Why do Americans use thongs for g-strings and Australians use thongs for sandals, or, right, flip flops. Let's see what it says.

In American English.

Speaker1:
Thong evolved to refer to a type of skimpy underwear G-string in the 20th century, as the word initially described a narrow strip of material which fit the style of this underwear. So there you go. It must be to do with that strip of material, more so than the being the underwear originally in Australia. Thongs has long meant flip flop sandals, as the term originally described, the thin strap that goes between the toes. This usage stuck in Australia, so the word now refers to footwear rather than underwear. There, the difference is just a result of the term evolving separately in each country, but obviously it's from that original strip of material. So there you go. It's cool. It's interesting that we have these same slang terms that, well, the words are the same, but they mean different things and that they have had the same origin. That is really cool. The video has gone long enough. Guys, if you can think of any other rude Australian slang terms that we use, that shock you guys, leave them in the comments below. Youtube reckons you're going to enjoy this video and I'll see you next time. Tooroo!