Transcript of 1337 - The Goss: Do You Know These 21 Common Aussie Slang Terms

G'day, you mob! Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news weather locally Down Under here in Australia or non locally overseas in other parts of the world, okay. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right. If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills.

In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the Podcast Membership or the Academy Membership at AussieEnglish.com.au, where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

Dad.

Pete.

And, um, I guess I can-hopefully could hear Pete.

I tried to. She stopped purring as soon as she put the microphone to it.

I was like, as soon as I moved...

She's looking at me like, what? Can I eat that?

Yeah, she's probably sitting here waiting for food.

Well. Don't move. Uh oh! You mentioned the word food.

I know she's like, Well, let's go.

Yeah.

Let's go!

Come on!

So we previously did an episode on interesting English expressions and their strange origins.

Mhm.

And, um, we've got some slang, to do the equivalent with slang...

Yeah, Australian slang rather than sort of historic expressions. So- this one. Oh you've got one, have you?

I've got ten.

Oh I've got a website that's got 21.

Oh okay. Well we can go through yours and we can just do mine...

Probably double up.

Yeah, we can just do mine next time.

What's the website? What's the...

It's babble.com, which is a language thing. And they've got a page called 21 Essential Australian Expressions.

I love these. We'll have to review them. How accurate?

Yeah. Well, do we want to do all 21, or just cherry pick?

Yeah. We can go through it.

Yeah. Quickly. Go. "Good on you!"

Yeah. Well done.

Yeah. Well done.

Good job.

Um. In fact, it actually means "well done, good stuff". And interestingly, this one, I'm glad this was first, because this relates to your sister when she was on exchange as a university student, at the University of British Columbia in Canada. And because she was on exchange, she used to hang out with a lot of other exchange students, most of whom most of whom were, um, European. Yeah. And so English not being their first language, um, she used to use this expression. 'Oh, good on you.' And they went, Ah, um, what's going on here? And there was another one about, um, 'on your bike', um, which I don't think is in this list, but 'on your bike'. What is 'on your bike' mean in Australia?

Well, it can mean a few things. It could mean, like, you don't believe what someone's saying, like they're full of shit and you're like, oh, yeah...

Yeah, 'on your bike' just means piss off, but go away.

Yeah. You can also say, like, alright, I'm going to go home and you know, I'm gonna get on my bike or the idea of getting on your bike...

But just generally, yeah, an instruction to- yeah, 'on your bike' just means go away.

'Get the fuck out of here'...

Whereas they used to interpret it as, Oh, let's go out together. Because the Dutch, 'on your bike'- All right, let's go! Yeah. Um. But yeah. The 'good on you'. Um, 'good on you' has two ways of saying it. Because if I say to you, 'good on you', it means..

Well done.

Well done. If I say 'good on you'?

You sceptical?

Means you're an idiot.

You're sarcastic...

Yeah, sarcastic. And it's. And a lot of, uh, even Americans can't pick the difference in that Australian.

Well, they wouldn't know it in the first place, right.

But they they'll recognise one, but they won't recognise the ironic one. The second one. Yeah. 'Good on you'. And they go, Oh, thanks!

Yeah. Oh. Cheers!

Right. Um. 'You little ripper'.

Oh, it's something awesome. So, ah, you would say it when something awesome has happened. Like 'you're a beauty', your terrific, awesome. Well done.

In fact, 'you little beauty' is the other one. 'You beauty' or 'you ripper'!

'You little ripper!' I think that is the classic scene from The Castle when they win, when Darryl Kerrigan wins the court case.

Yeah.

He says, he stands up in the middle of the court and says "You little ripper!" And the judges are all like, What? You know, like, This is inappropriate!

Yes. If you want a movie of Australian expressions.

Oh my gosh, The Castle. And it's created 'a whole bunch of dreaming'. Tell him...

'Tell him he's dreaming'.

Dream- it's the vibe. It's the vibe of the thing. There's a whole bunch of these that Aussies use.

Yeah. Um, 'to crack on to somebody'.

'To crack on to someone' is to pass it. Something, like to make a pass at someone...

Yeah, to try and kiss them or to pick them up. Yeah.

Yeah. But you could also use 'to crack on' to mean, like, keep going.

Yeah. 'To crack on' in general just means to keep trying.

Yeah. 'We should crack on', let's keep going.

Yeah. As opposed 'to crack on to someone'.

Like, you're at a pub or something. If you were drinking a beer and some girl came up to me or you or whatever like, Hey, how's it going?

Yeah.

She might, you might be like, Are you cracking on to me? I've got a wife, mate. What are you doing?

Yeah. Exactly. Um. 'Have a whinge'.

Complain.

Yeah.

Yeah. Have a whinge. Have a cry.

Yeah.

To complain about something. Oh, what is he having a whinge about now? And I would use this often with, it's like belittling, because it's sort of childlike language.

Yeah.

So if you, with my kids, I'm always saying They're whingeing.

Yeah.

Whereas if you say that about an adult, you're almost belittling them because you're likening them to being a child.

Yes.

And so it has this extra thing to...

Me, me, me, me. That whiny sort of...

So like, you use any of that, kind of like 'have a cry'.

Yeah.

'Have a whinge'. You know, um, use that language that's related to kids and how they complain and get upset. If you use that on adults, it has an extra layer of offence.

Yeah.

Because you're likening them to children.

Mhm.

'You have a whinge, mate?'

Yeah. Yeah. Which is often followed up by, which I don't think is on this list, by yeah, 'harden the fuck up'.

Well yeah. What is it again? The full one is...

Take a, 'take a dose of cement and harden the fuck up'...

Have a teaspoon of cement and...

It means 'get over it'.

Yeah. Exactly.

Uh, 'pom'.

Uh, ten, 'ten pound pom', is that what it is?

Well, 'pom' yeah, as in somebody who is British.

Yeah, exactly. I think it comes from, is it pomme de terre or pomegranate?

No, pomegranate.

Pomegranate, is it?

Which is allegedly comes from, um, people. You know, British people typically were very pale skinned when they came to Australia and they went out in the Australian sun and turned bright red like a pomegranate.

So when you cut it. Yeah, we call them lobsters, right. You go to Byron, Byron Bay or, um, what's the beach again?

Bondi.

Bondi beach. And you just go for a walk and you'll see all of these Brits who just arrived like that last day or whatever, and they're bright red from being sunburnt. Do you know why it is that we, um, have way more UV here? It's not about the ozone layer. As much as I thought it was back in the day.

Well, partly it's because of the latitude.

Um, it's not, not not entirely. It's because the way that the earth goes around the sun for our summer, where actually something like 500,000 miles closer to the sun. So the UV is more intense. So that's it's for our summers. It's like an oval shape going around the sun, and it's shifted slightly so that we get closer.

Yeah.

So it's related to that.

Yeah. But also the latitude. Because you know people, if, if you come from the northern United States, you're in the sort of high 40 latitudes Canada, you're in the 50s. England and most of Europe, most of northern Europe is in the 50s degrees latitude.

Yeah.

Um, where, you know, as far south as you can go without being in Tasmania, in Australia. And we're in the high 30s, we're 37.5 degrees south.

But that'd be like south, southern Spain, wouldn't it?

Yeah it is. But yeah, I'm sure the same thing happens when British, Britons go to Spain for their summer holidays. They get sunburned. But but yeah, but being closer has probably got a lot to do with as well. Alright, 'it's chockers in here'.

Um, 'very full'. 'Chock a block'.

It's crowded. 'Chock a block'.

I want to know the origin of that one. I haven't looked it up.

Um. No, they don't say.

Yeah, I don't know. I'll have to look that up at some point.

No.

But 'chock a block' is very full, so, like, if you had an esky full of drinks, you could say it's 'chock a block full'...

'It's chockers'. Or you walk into a pub and you can't get in because there's too many people. 'Ah, it's chockers in here'.

It's one of those cool ones where it's been...

It's a contraction from another expression like 'chock a block'.

And then 'chockers'...

And 'chockers', yeah. Um, 'crack a tinny'.

Open a can of beer. Or, I don't know, you could use 'tinny' for any kind of alcoholic...

You can, but it's only ever called. Yeah. You don't. You. I'm sitting here holding an empty Diet Coke...

But there's no alcohol in it.

But there's no alcohol in it. And even even a. Yeah. Vodka and tonic or something in a can, you wouldn't call it 'tinny'...

So you reckon, you reckon when you were growing up, if you had a mix of these drinks in cans in the, um, esky and you said 'Chuck us a tinny', someone...

Someone would say 'There's no beer in here, mate'.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Um. 'To chander'.

To throw up.

Yep.

And there's a funny like, isn't there that 'Na na na na na na na na na na. Chunder!'

Yeah!

So the song AC DC is Thunderstruck...

Thunderstruck, yeah.

You would have that sort of a joke when you got too drunk or whatever, and you were looking a bit sick or feeling bad. Everyone would start singing that 'na na na na na na na'.

And what's the other, what's the other popular song that's in that...

Chunder?

Yeah.

Thunder? I don't know.

No. It's in um. Men At Work's Down Under.

Down Under?

Yeah.

Okay. At what part? You mean 'chunder' or you mean..,

Chunder? The word chunder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was having a chunder or whatever. Yeah.

Uh, 'barbie'.

That's where men chunder?

Yes.

That's right.

'Barbie'.

Uh, it could be a Barbie doll, but it's usually 'a barbecue'.

'Barbecue', correct. Yeah.

Where are you gonna put some food, chuck some snags on the barbie...

Yeah, 'chuck some snags on the barbie'. A 'snag' is a sausage.

And it can also be the event, of having a barbecue. Having a, having people...

'Having a barbie', it's not necessarily the device upon which you cook food.

Yeah, it's an interesting...

Like grill.

Like in Portuguese, they have different words for those two things. They're similar, I think. It's [speaks Portuguese] and [speaks Portuguese]. It might be, [speaks Portuguese], I don't know. It was one of those two, I've forgotten. But they have those different ones to differentiate between the item itself and the event thing. Whereas we would just use barbie.

A barbie.

Yeah. And it's like...

It's a barbecue is a, is a party at which a barbecue will be used to cook food.

Yeah.

Um. 'Arvo'.

That's an easy one. 'Afternoon'.

Yeah.

'What time are you coming over this arvo?'

Yeah, 'this arvo'.

You know something really cool that I noticed about Australian English when I was doing some of these lessons? We have these phrases of, like 'this morning', 'this afternoon', 'this evening'. But the way pretty much all Australians will say it is by taking the S from 'this' and putting it on to the start of the...

Oh yeah, 'this smorning'.

Yeah. And also instead of saying 'thi', they'll make it sound like 'the'.

'The smorning'.

So it's almost like you've got 'the' as in...

'Smorning' becomes the noun.

'Smorning' 'sevening' 'sarvo' 'safternoon'. Yeah. "I'll see you /the safternoon/".

Yeah.

When they're actually saying "this afternoon". But you would never do it with anything else. Like, um, 'this time', "I'll see you at /the stime/". No one would ever say that. But for some reason, we do it with /the sarvo/ /the sevening/ /the smorning/.

Yeah.

It's a very weird, peculiar thing I've noticed.

'Ciggy'.

Cigarette.

Correct.

Yeah. He's, "No one's smoking a ciggy these days".

'Mozzie'?

Um. Mosquito.

Yep.

Yeah.

'Brekkie'?

Breakfast?

Yeah.

There's a lot of these that are.

Yeah.

E.

E. E and O, on the end of things.

And ah...

Um.

'Sanger'? Sandwich?

Here we go. This is a multiple one, 'chuck on some tracky dacks'. Speak English, 'chuck on some tracky dacks'.

So put on some, uh, tracksuit pants.

Correct.

Yeah. Tracky dacks. And chuck something on?

Yeah. 'Chuck on' is a, um, expression for throw. And then you people would say throw on some clothes, but it's like, 'put'. It means to 'put on'...

'Chuck some snags on the Barbie'. Um, 'chuck us a beer'. It's to do with something moving from one place to another.

Yeah, but but it's a weird one because 'chuck something on the barbie', you could actually throw it on the barbecue...

But that's where it's from...

I know.

To roughly do it...

To 'chuck on' some pants.

Yeah.

There's like, there's no throwing involved in this.

Yeah. Well, the other interesting one that pairs with that is 'grab'.

Yeah.

Like 'grab us a beer'. 'I might grab a coffee', because you're not literally going, 'Gimme that! Gimme that! Gimme that damn coffee!' You're just 'getting it', right? So it's interesting when we have those kind of informal slang terms or verbs for things like 'put', 'give', 'take', 'get'.

'Wanker'.

Someone who masturbates.

Yeah. Well that's the, that's the formal definition.

Yeah. I love though that that became like, um, a negative thing. I know someone who this, this guy is a masturbator. He's a wanker. You know, like, he's he's a very bad person.

So it means an idiot or an arrogant person.

And we use it pretty frequently in Australia. 'What a fucking wanker'.

Yeah, but I think it's actually when you, when you sort of analyse it, it sort of makes sense. I mean, masturbating is about giving yourself pleasure.

Yeah. You can't get it from someone else.

Yeah. And whereas, you know, when you. When we insult somebody as 'a wanker'. Yeah. They just upped themselves. They're full of themselves. It's all about them. It's so it sort of makes sense. 'Mate'.

'A friend'.

'Friend'.

'Buddy'. 'How are you, mate?'

Yeah.

'Bludger'?

A lazy person. He's 'a bludger'. He's 'a Dole bludger'. Someone who's on the Dole. He gets money from the government. 'He's a Dole bludger'.

Yeah. 'Bogan'.

That one's a hard one. Like a uncouth, uneducated person of the lower class, usually. But it's sort of...

Typically.

It's now, you can make a lot of money and still be a bogan. Like, you can have certain jobs that earn a lot of income...

And it used to be...

Bogan attitudes and behaviours.

It used to be, when I was a kid. It was always aimed at people you consider to be lower socio economic working class.

And it would have been one of those things where everyone else was a bogan. You weren't a bogan.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everyone else was. Yeah. I'm working class, but I'm not a bogan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's it's sort of lost its negativity, I feel. Whereas nowadays you'll have people say, Yeah, I'm a bit of a bogan and it's not really like, Ooh, gross.

Yeah.

It's just seen as okay, they're probably rough around the edges and, you know.

Yeah.

Behave a certain way.

Depending on where you come from. Melbourne and Sydney, this is true. Often called Westies.

Oh that would be. Ah, yeah. From the west side of...

The western suburbs.

Yeah.

Which typically were the more working class suburbs in Melbourne and Sydney.

Well I guess they would have been the more recent ones that were cheaper and easier to live in because they were developed later.

And they've also got one here. Um, 'Cubs'.

A 'cashed up bogan'.

Yeah.

So they're the bogans that have a lot of money, often tradies, right, that have lots of...

Fishing boats..

And. Yeah, exactly.

Um, and this one's very different from, if you're from North America, 'to be pissed'.

Well, it could be multiple things, right?

But in Australian slang?

Well, it could be 'drunk'.

If you're 'pissed', you're 'drunk'.

But it could be 'angry' as well.

Yeah, but that's the American version. The Americans. Yeah. Americans, both.

Yeah.

Yeah, but we've just accepted that because of American culture, the infiltrated movies...

You 'drank some piss and you got pissed'.

Yeah, 'I got pissed'. It doesn't mean you got angry. It means you got drunk.

'Fanny'?

'Vagina'. Americans would use...

Americans, and English, use it for, meaning 'backside'.

Yeah. What is it again? It's that "Fran Fine, the nanny named Fran. She got kicked out on her fanny". We used to always laugh at that intro to that TV show, because I think she gets thrown out of her home or whatever, and she lands on her butt.

Yeah.

And because her name is Fran, I guess they rhyme it with 'fanny'. And I remember just being like, How on earth did she land on her vagina?

I know. That requires some...

Yeah. Jesus Christ.

Fair. Fair. Gymnastics.

I remember hearing that for the first time. Because Fanny is the kind of word in English. In Australian English that you would use as a child talking about vaginas. Like, as a kid at primary school, you know. "Oh my God, her dress came off and you could see her fanny". It's like 'willy'.

Yes.

I would never say Willy or Fanny. Now, as an adult. But when I was a little kid, you would say, you know, girls have fannies and boys have willies.

Yeah.

You know, and, um, but it's just not used anymore. So it always makes us laugh when we hear Americans talk about fanny packs.

Yeah, exactly.

They 'bumbags'. We would call them, but they call them 'fanny packs'. And it's just like. It's just so weird. Like, I remember Joe Rogan would use that. He'd be like, Oh, I have my fanny pack.

Yeah.

And you're just like. It just sounds so weird seeing a grown man saying 'fanny'.

I know.

It's just like, what the hell, dude?

I know.

Because it's not even just a vagina. It's a young girl. Like, it's just such a weird word. Yeah. Talk about words. You just haven't heard since you were in primary school.

I don't know.

Yeah.

All right. 'Thong'.

Flip flops, or what would you call them? They're not sandals.

Well, they are...

I always find it so hard to find the other words...

They're typically plastic or rubber, rubber sandals that don't have a heel.

I always find it so...

Nothing behind a heel. It's just two straps. And they. And as opposed to in North America, a thong is what we would call..?

G-string.

A G-string. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But we're so used to hearing it that. Yeah, it's sort of interchangeable, right? But, yeah, they go on your feet. There's a really funny Karl Baron comedy sketch where he's like, um, I can't do it really justice. But he was talking about that miscommunication between thongs and he's like, Oh, you could, you know, um, she was wearing thongs, and the American's like, What? You could see a thong? And he's like, Yeah, mate, they're on her feet.

Her feet!

Yeah. He's like and he's like, Why did she have him on her feet? And he's like, I don't know. I wear them! And he's like, You wear thongs?!, you know?

Yeah. We had a, um, an American friend, um, who was a DJ in Australia at University of Melbourne, um, on, uh, sabbatical leave. And he, he told this story of walking into a large store in Melbourne to buy 'braces', as in..

To probably...

To hold up his pants. But being an American, he called them 'suspenders'.

Oh!

And he kept getting referred to the women's lingerie department and couldn't work out what was going on.

Cos there, the equivalent.

The 'suspenders' were to hold up...

Women's lingerie. Yeah, their pants or...

They're holding up, um, underwear.

Stockings. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's.

And that was that. Yeah. And we then said, Oh yeah. What about thongs?

There's a whole bunch of those though, right? Like, who was I chatting to recently?

So that's the 21.

I had one of my students from, I think he was from India, but he learnt like English since a young age and he travelled around the world and he was saying, um, that he would always say 'root', 'root for something'.

Oh, yeah.

And I was just like, Oh my god, dude. Barrack.

No.

Because I was like, yeah, you 'root' for a team in America or Canada, you 'root' for a team, you 'barrack' for the team. But here, 'root' means to have sex.

Yeah.

You know, or you could 'root around' for something. It's like to look for something in a bag or whatever. But 'root', you would say, like who are you rooting for?

You're rooting for. You're going, You're having sex for your football team? How is that? I'm sure they can do it by themselves!

Yeah. That's it.

I was always like, How's that going to help them win? Yeah. So yeah, 21 of them, we've smashed it out.

Yeah. We added 'rooting'.

Um, did you have any favourites that you were going to bring along or any...

No, no, they were the, I just found those. I thought that was a just an interesting one. People can go and look it up themselves if they wanted to. Yeah.

You'll have to let us know what your favourites are guys, and we'll chat to you next time.

Yeah, give us some more to talk about.

See you guys!

Bye!