Transcript of AE 1302 - 26 Australianisms Canadians Don't Understand

G'day, you mob! Welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. I am your host, Pete. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I hope you are enjoying yourselves. It's getting a bit warmer at the moment. It is spring, right? We are slowly creeping towards summer and things are heating up. So wherever you are in the world I hope you have great weather at the moment. And um, yeah, if you're in Australia, don't forget to slip, slop, slap. Put on that sunscreen because it's starting to heat up, and I can definitely feel, I can definitely feel it when I go out in the sun. I can feel that heat just on my skin. It feels like what I imagine being inside a microwave is like, where even if it's sort of cool, the sun is so powerful you can feel your skin kind of heating up.

Anyway, today I have stripped the audio from a YouTube video. You'll be able to see this YouTube video, so it's a YouTube video of a YouTube video. This one is 26 Australianisms Canadians Don't Understand. You'll be able to find this on my channel. And it's me reacting to a video from a Canadian woman called Gabrielle Linda. So I get into that. I talk a bit more about her channel in the video. Without any further ado, guys, let's get into it and I hope you enjoy it.

G'day, you mob! Pete here, welcome to Aussie English! Today I'm going to be reacting to this video, 26 Weird Things Australians Say from the channel "gabrielle linda". So I watched the first few minutes and I thought, you know what? This is going to be an interesting one to break down each of these things that she brings up, because quite a few were pretty good. So I assume the whole video is going to be good. I'll react, give you my view on them, and then hopefully explain them so that if you're in Australia or you want to sound more Australian, you can do so okay. And obviously go check out Gabrielle's channel. So let's get into it.

But the first thing I noticed that was kind of weird that Australians said to me was, 'How are you going?' Like in Canada, we ask, 'how are you doing'? But in Australia to see like how you are, they ask, 'how are you going?' Instead of 'how are you doing?'

Super common. How are you going? How'ya going? How are you going, mate? How are you going?

G'day, Melbourne. How are you going?

This can be a rhetorical question or a question that doesn't need a response where you're just walking around, someone passes you. How are you going, mate? Yeah. Good. How are you going? You don't want to get into your life story. Very common here in Australia. And yes, it is common for someone to say that and for you to not be required to say anything besides 'Good, mate. And you? How are you doing?'.

You can do that. It kind of is used a bit more in Australia, I think for like if someone's worried about you, like if I saw someone, you know, that I knew and they looked a bit down in the dumps, a bit sad, I might say. How are you doing? You know, are you doing okay? Are you going okay? Are you alright? How are you doing? How are you doing? You know, it sounds to me, at least, off the top of my head, a bit more like you're showing some concern.

And this is another one that's funny. The Brits tend to say, You're right, you know. 'Are you all right?' As a 'how are you going', 'how are you doing' type greeting. You know and it doesn't require much of a response besides 'Yeah, good, mate. You?' or you know. Yeah, you're right. For us again that's like 'are you all right?'.

If someone said 'are you all right?' It's like, yeah, I'm okay. What? Do I look sick. You know what's what's up? Why are you concerned? You know, are you all right? We would say that in Australia, when someone's, yeah, in trouble looking ill, there's some sort of a problem and you're checking on them, like, are you okay? Are you all right?

You're right there, mate. You're right.

So that one's always blown my mind. How Brits say that. It feels a bit weird. How are you doing? Yeah, you let me know, Aussies. Is that something you say very often? 'How are you going?' is just the go to, right?

The next thing Australians say is 'Too easy'. As in like, 'Right on' or like, 'Awesome, thank you!'

True! Okay, so too easy. Yeah. We would use this when someone has asked you for something or requested something, and the task that they've given you is too easy. The idea, I guess, is that you're showing that it is not a problem at all, right. It's no problem at all. This is too easy. It's not a problem. So we would use that quite often in Australia. Too easy, you know.

Too easy. Have a good day!

Mate, can you come over and help me later today with mowing my lawn? Oh, for sure, mate. Too easy, you know. No, that's not a problem at all. Too easy mate. Too easy.

Another one they say that's kind of along the same lines is 'legend'. Or they say 'you're a legend'. Or if you say something that they like, they just say 'legend'.

This is a compliment that we often use in Australia. If someone is amazing, if they're awesome, you'd say they're a legend, right? They are a living legend. They're a legend.

And you're a legend, mate. Tell me a legend.

So if someone tells me they're going to do something, you know, like, Oh, I'm bringing back your mower today. I don't know why we're talking about mowing the grass so much, but it's on the top of my head. Maybe I need to do it. If they're bringing back the mower, I might be like, Oh, too easy. Legend! You know, I might say You're a legend. Thank you so much for doing that. It's like I'm giving you an honour. I'm giving you a compliment. I'm calling you a legend for what you are doing that is so trivial. You are an absolute legend. Legend! What a legend! Yeah, it's common.

And if you like someone a lot, right? Like, Oh, mate, you got to meet my mate Tim. He's such a legend. The guy is, he's amazing. He's a legend. He's a legend.

So that's Glen up there. He's a legend, Glen.

You can use it for someone amazing like that, too. I don't know if it works on women too much, or if women would say it about men or women, but it's definitely something men say about other men.

Of course the classic 'Cheers'. They say 'cheers' a lot. It's like a word of approval or sometimes even like, 'thank you', they'll say 'cheers'.

Sometimes, it's pretty much always, 'thank you'.

Thanks for your time. Cheers.

I don't know about approval. Like, if you're doing something that someone approves of, obviously. Would they say 'cheers'? I don't think it would be used in that sense, but it would definitely be used in like, Here's your coffee, mate. Oh, cheers!, you know, as in, thank you. It's just another way of saying 'ta', 'thank you'. Cheers. Cheers, mate. Oh too easy. Yeah, bloody legend. You know, you can string all of these together, guys. By the end of this, you're going to be fluent in Australian English.

Something that I actually really like Australians saying is 'darl', 'darl', it kind of sounds like 'doll' when they're saying it, but it's like short for 'darling', I think. Like, 'Thanks, darl!'

Sounds like 'doll' to her because in Australian English we're using a dialect of English, an accent that is non-rhotic. The short story is we only say R if a vowel sound comes after the R in a word. So in the word 'darl', it's just a long R sound. /darh/ because there's an L after the R.

This is short for 'darling', and typically men might use this on their wives. Their girlfriends?

What do you call that, darl?

It's a little outdated. I don't know if they would do that too much anymore. But you'll often hear women using this, especially older women, when interacting with younger people and even people their own age.

Hi Pauline, good to see you, darl!

It's like a good example is if you went to an outback pub or an outback store or something away from the city. You're in the sticks. You're going into a milk bar and you've bought a drink or something. She might be like, Oh, that'll be five bucks, darl. It's like 'love'. It's the same thing. She may say 'love' as well. It's just a kind of affectionate, informal way of referring to to someone you know. Yeah, informally.

I wouldn't typically use this on women myself. Besides, maybe my wife, but I don't think it's a word I go to. If I use this on women that weren't, I wasn't in a relationship with, which is, you know, every single woman except my wife currently. Currently. The fuck, Pete!? It would seem a bit weird. 'Ah, thanks, darl.' You know, they might be like, What?

Obviously, in true Australian fashion, I've never heard that word be used so much. I actually don't know if I've ever really heard anyone use wow. In Canada, we mostly just drop like F bombs every second word. Um, so. Yeah, I'd never really heard before, but..

Man, you guys have got to paint with every colour on the palette, right? It's just used a lot in Australia! We say 'cunt', we say it a lot. We say it in very negative ways. Someone can be an 'absolute cunt', you know, and it's about the worst thing you can call someone.

But we can use it in a very positive way. Someone is a 'mad cunt'. 'My best mate, Tim, he is a mad cunt', you know. Davo. 'Davo down the street. He's a mad cunt. That guy is a top cunt. He is the best guy I know.'.

So we can use it both ways. Again, this is tied in with our culture. Informality. We swear a little more, I think, than Americans, Canadians and Brits. And we use the c-bomb a little more too. I think Brits use the c-bomb quite a bit. Americans are pretty loathe to use it. They will not do it very often unless they are in dire straits and really scraping the bottom of the barrel for insults, I think. You know, it's sort of like, Oh God, do we really drop the nuke? You know, I'm going to get shot.

They say it, all the time, they say it to their friends. Um, it can be like an endearing thing, or it can just mean, like a person.

Like, I would say, I remember back in the day if someone was messaging me or called me or something, and it was one of my best mates, you know, when I was a teenager or whatever, you'd say things like, Sup, cunt? You know, as in, What's up? What's up, cunt? What's. What's going on, cunt? Yeah. What's up cunt? You know, it's a, it's a common one. It's a, it's a common one, you hear?

I would definitely not recommend using this with anyone that is not in your closest inner circle of close friends that are Australian. Do not use this with strangers.

Another one that I know isn't like purely just Australian. It's also from like Europe and stuff. They just say 'rubbish'. We don't say 'rubbish', we say like 'garbage' or 'trash' and they say 'rubbish'. So I think that's kind of funny.

We kind of use all of them. I think you'll hear people saying 'garbage' and 'rubbish' kind of interchangeably, and then less frequently you'll hear 'trash'. But it's because we just we hear so many of these words used by Americans on American TV, movies, podcasts. So we're we're so used to hearing it. 'Rubbish'. Yeah. Is typically what's used. We would say, you know, That's rubbish. We can use that to, to talk about someone who's lying a lot, 'spinning yarns', you know, 'full of shit'. We can say that. What they're saying is rubbish. It's rubbish, it's garbage.

I think that's all rubbish.

I don't know if you'd say 'trash', but you can say 'trash talk'. I guess you wouldn't say rubbish talk. Yeah, that's funny how we have this variety of these different words that we use that are sort of all synonyms.

Another weird one that they say when you say 'thank you'...

She's about to say 'ta' or 'no worries'.

No worries. 'It's all good'. I feel like that's when in Canada we say it's like, Oh no problem. Like it's all good. They'll say 'It's all right'.

Ah! Okay.

And that one kind of threw me off at the beginning, because in Canada, I feel like we don't really say, like, 'it's all right' as, like, a 'no problem' thing. It's like, it's all right.

That's a weird one. I wasn't picking that at all, as you guys saw. It's all right. That's all right. Yeah. I mean, you could use it. It's English. Um, I don't know if that's uniquely Australian again. You guys, you let me know.

I would have thought something like 'so good' is another common one we would use. Ah, so good. Not a problem. You know, it's all good. It's all fine. It's all right. She'll be right. It's all right, it's all right. There's loads of those I would probably use more frequently than just It's all right. She'll be right. It'll be all right. It's all good. Yeah, it's all good, mate. Don't worry about it.

Something funny that I've heard Australians say that I really like, actually, is 'a feed'. Like, a meal? They're going to eat some food. 'I'm just going for a quick feed'. 'I'm here to grab myself a feed'. Yeah, like that one. I think it's neat.

Again. God, I feel like there's other phrases we would say more frequently than 'a feed'. 'A bit of grub', I don't know. Feed? I get. I mean, we use it.

But they're tasty little morsels. But we've got a bit of a feed!

I hadn't even thought about that. And that's not one that's on the tip of my tongue, to be honest.

They call liquor stores, bottle, bottle-Os or bottle shops. And a lot of Australian bottle-Os or bottle shops are drive through. Which is strange. We don't have that in Canada.

We have this. I was talking to my dad about this recently, and I think a lot of the time it's because bottle-Os are quite frequently associated with pubs or other, maybe even hotels. And so people who just want to go in and buy alcohol obviously want to be able to do so quickly. They're not going in to stay. They don't want to have to, you know, go into a store or something. So having a drive thru is the easiest thing.

Though, when I was thinking about it and talking about it with my dad, I'm like, it is very weird, you know? Do they have drive thru places you can buy cannabis in the US? Do they have drive-thru places that you can get other? You know, I can just go coffee drive-thrus but, but you drink the coffee while you drive. You don't drink alcohol while you drive. So I don't know. I don't know, but yes, they're called bottle-Os.

Because we just drive it to the servo and go to the bottle-O. Yeah, definitely turns some heads, that's for sure.

Bottle shops, bottle-O. We use those two interchangeably. We wouldn't really say liquor store or I think. Is there another way that the Brits call it? The Americans call it a liquor store? Trying to think. God. No, bottle-Os, those are standard.

They call gas stations a 'servo', like a service station, I guess. We just call them gas stations.

She got it. So, service station. That is what 'servo' is short for, and it is a petrol station.

They were there to buy their meat from the butcher or fuel from the servo.

Gas station. We wouldn't really use at all. And we don't refer to petrol as 'gas'. You can get 'gas' at a petrol station, but typically it is like LPG gas that you're putting into the car. It's literally gas. I always got confused by Americans, call it. I guess it's 'gasoline', but it always felt weird. They call it 'gas', but we don't. We call it 'petrol', 'diesel'. And then what else? Yeah, you would just say gas is literally LPG gas. If you said, I'm going to get 'gas' and you meant petrol, people would be confused.

Yeah. Servos. You may sometimes hear people say 'pedo'- like not /pedoW/ but /peto/ for petrol. I remember that when I was younger. I don't know if I've heard that recently. Like I'm going to go get some 'peto'. Yeah, I think we probably shied away from that. That sounds a bit wrong.

They have this weird nickname for the afternoon called 'arvo'. They'll say 'this arvo'. Also, when I say it in my accent, everything sounds so harsh and like not cool, but.

The reason it sounds weird when she says it is because with phrases like 'this morning', 'this evening', 'this afternoon', or 'this arvo'. You'll notice when we say this, right, we're not saying /this/ /arvo/, /this/ /evening/, /this/ /morning/. But instead we're saying what sounds like /the/, right. We're using that schwa sound. So you'll hear /thəs◡morning/ /thəs◡arvo/ /thəs◡evening/.

I often say, What are you doing this arvo? This arvo? This arvo?

Okay, that's why it sounds weird if you say /this/ /evening/, /this/ /morning/, /this/ /afternoon/ or arvo. It's not something any Australian would really say unless they were really emphasising. No, it's /this/ /arvo/. /This◡arvo/, /this◡arvo/ mate. /this◡arvo/. I'll see you /this◡arvo. See you /this◡arvo/.

Arvo. I didn't know what that was when I first got here, but it just means 'afternoon'.

Not to be confused with 'avo', as in 'avocado'.

They call McDonald's 'Maccas', which I'd never heard before. I've heard people call it 'dons' in Canada. We call it 'dons' 'Mickey D's'. But I'd never heard 'Macca's'. That's what everyone calls it here.

I've heard 'Mickey D's'. My son calls it 'The Donald's', though that makes me think of Trump every time I hear him say, 'We're going to The Donald's', 'We want to go to The Donald's'. Macca's, man. That's it.

Go through the drive thru at Macca's instead.

Macca's. Macca D's. Macca's. Mcdonald's. Yep. It's what we use in Australia. Macca's. We're going to a Macca's run. You can do a Macca's run. That's where you get in the car. Go through the drive thru. Macca's run.

Free breeze after a Macca's run.

Macca's yeah. Macca's.

They call trucks 'utes'. Never heard that one.

No we don't. We call utes 'utes'. Trucks are different. Trucks are those huge things that haul trailers on the road, right? Those are trucks.

Utes are utes. Utility vehicles, right. I know that Americans and North Americans, Canadians too, obviously call those trucks, but that always seemed like you're trying too hard to be bigger than you really are. It's not a truck, it's a car. It's a utility vehicle. It's a ute. It's got a tray on the back. It's a ute.

A truck is an actual truck that hauls stuff, right? That has cargo, you know, a vast, massive thing on the back of it, a trailer, two trailers, right. It's that's a that's a truck for me. If you said I drive a truck, I'd be like, What, for a job? You know that's your job. You're a truckie? You're a truck driver? I wouldn't be thinking ute.

Some guy in a ute comes along, cuts her off.

The other thing that's funny that I don't know if she's going to mention or not, is that we call the American trucks, you know, that they bring over here that are utes, that are these huge things. Some of them have like four tires at the back. They take up like two parking spots. It's a love-hate thing in Australia. If you own one, you probably love one. If you don't own one, you probably think everyone that has one is a dickhead. Because yeah, they just take up too much space. We call them 'yank tanks', right. Yankee? I guess that's the long word for yank, right? 'Yank tanks'. It's a 'yank tank'.

They call candies 'lollies'. Which I thought lollies were just like a lollipop. But no, it's like any kind of candy are called 'lollies'.

Yeah.

So, lolly shop full of lollies. Nothing's boring. They're all lollies.

But we use these interchangeably. We may say candy as well. From time to time you will have all sorts of lollies that have candy in the name. I think you know. And like things like candy apple. You would, you would have candy and you wouldn't call it a lolly apple, but yes, we typically say 'lolly'. Again, we would know exactly what you meant if you said candy.

Oh, another thing they say instead of like, 'no problem' is 'no drama'.

No drama. She's still not getting to 'no worries'.

Yeah. No dramas.

They call sausages, like, hot dogs 'snags'.

It's not hot dogs. These are just sausages in general. Beef sausages. Typically, you know, the standard sort of minced up meat. Really cheap sausages you get from the supermarket. You chuck them on the barbie, the barbecue. Those are 'snags' I don't- like, a hot dog is a red. The, what is it like the, it's a sausage that has that red skin on the outside. That is specifically for having inside of a hot dog like the bread. Right?

And don't get me started on what it's called when you go to Bunnings and get a, uh, God, I can't even remember now. A snag in bread. There's a whole bunch of these slang terms for it in Australia, I would call it. I think I would just call it a sausage in bread. I can't even remember because I was studying this recently and there's like four different ways in Australia. It's like a sausage sandwich, sausage in bread. There's a bunch of them.

And also, when they eat their hot dogs, they don't use hot dog buns. Everyone here uses white bread.

We do use hot dog buns. It'll just be that you're having an actual hot dog. But yeah, if you said, I'm going to go to the shop and get some hot dogs, people would never think you were going to come back with some sausages, like, you know, a packet of sausages. They would think you were going to come back with literal hot dogs in buns. If we're having a hot dog, we're having a hot dog in a bun, specifically with mustard, with sauce on it. You know, the American style. If we're getting sausages, typically it's not going to be, uh, hot dog related type sausages.

Everyone here uses white bread folded around the snag.

The bread thing. Yeah, is very common. I don't know why it's become a cultural thing. I think it's just that we had public type barbecue events, fundraisers, fetes, all that sort of stuff, and people would have a barbecue. And it's just easy to have bread, sliced bread, white bread, very cheap. And, you know, stock, standard beef, sausages.

Onions will be another thing they'll be cooking up and they'll have, you know, tomato sauce, barbecue sauce and mustard to chuck on it as well. But yes, it's very, very common to see that around Australia. Much more common than having a hot dog in those types of events. It's probably because we don't have that sort of bread that you guys in the US use to put hot dogs in. So sort of ubiquitously everywhere around the country it's not that common. Whereas white sliced bread is everywhere.

I also didn't know what a 'swag' was until I came here. There are a lot of people that have 'swag', and they're basically just like a single tent thing that a single person could fit into and sleep in for, like camping and stuff.

Boom. Straight into the bush. Free me swag out. Camped under the stars and I was healed up.

Yeah, that's true. If you've got like a one man tent, it can be a 'swag'. If it's kind of not your typical large tent type thing, you know, it's kind of like just enough to keep the rain off you. It's almost like a bivvy, you know, but really small. And you can go in there with your sleeping bag and a pillow and that's that's pretty much all it is. And it's easy to roll up. Chuck on your back, Chuck on a bike, you know, chuck it in the back of your car and tow around everywhere.

Now here are a couple of weird ones. A 'stubby' is what they call a bottle. So if they go into like, a 'bottle shop', or if they go into a bar, they'll ask for 'a stubby of something' that just means 'a bottle of something'. And if they want the can of something, they'll call it a 'tinnie' sometimes, or a tin.

I haven't heard 'tin', but I've heard 'tinny' and 'stubby' would usually be those short, stout alcoholic beverages in a glass bottle. The bigger ones that are like, what are they, 750ml? Those are 'longnecks' and the standard ones. I don't know if you would call it a 'stubby'. I feel like the 'stubby' for me. I grew up with it and it was that short fat, canned sized glass bottle of things like VB and Carlton Draught. The other ones? Yeah. What would you call them? God, I don't even know. I think you would just say bottle, right. Besides that.

Another weird thing they say instead of just 'thank you' is, they'll say, 'thanking you'. I've never heard anyone say 'thanking you' before as 'thank you', but they say it.

'Thanking you'? She hasn't said 'ta'. How's she not said 'ta'? 'Ta' is the same for 'thank you'. 'Ta'. It's like the quickest, easiest way to say thanks, you know. Like, 'Ta, mate', 'ta'. Kids say it quite a lot. But 'thanking you'? Haven't heard that. Maybe that's a new thing.

And they also say 'ta'-

There it is!

I don't know what that was the first time someone said that to me. It was a 'ta' 'ta' 'ta' 'ta'. Um, but it just means 'thank you'. Now, this one is just silly. Again was very confused the first time I heard it. Was 'sanger'. It means 'sandwich'.

I would have always spelled it with, like an A at the end. So you don't have to say the R. Like just 'sanga'. 'Sanga' with an A at the end, because you could use either. But yeah, I don't, I don't think I would ever pronounce it with an R. No that's because Australians non-rhotic right. Yeah. Short for sandwich. Sandwich. Sanger. I'm going to have a sanger.

But a 'ranger' is a 'redhead'.

Ranger? Yes, a red headed person. God, I wonder why. Yeah, I don't know why it's 'ranger'. I should have looked that up.

Another thing Australians say that I'd never heard before coming here was 'It won't be a minute' when they're trying to tell you what they're about to do won't take long.

Yeah, I think I would probably say 'Won't be a minute' as in, I won't be long.

I'll just pop out. I won't be a minute. Is that okay?

Yeah. I guess you could do it if you're serving someone you know, like, I'm going to go and buy a sandwich from a store and the lady's like, Oh, okay, I'll do it now. Won't be a minute. Yeah, that's pretty common. I don't know if I would ever say 'it won't be a minute', like really, really long like that. It would be more like, Yeah, it won't be a minute, mate.

And get this one. Okay, a 'doggy bag'. What does that make you think of? A 'doggy bag' makes me think of, like, the bag that you use to pick up your dog's waste when you go on a walk. But in Australia, if someone asks for a 'doggy bag', they're probably at a restaurant asking if they can have a takeaway container, which I don't know where that came from, but I feel like I don't want to know the origins of that.

It's because you could take the food home and feed it to your dog, mate. That's probably why. I think that's it. She get to 26. Anyway, yeah, hopefully you've enjoyed this guys. Youtube reckons you're going to enjoy this video next and I'll see you next time. Tooroo!