Transcript of AE 1368 - The Goss: What Are Some Australian Norms?

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 and Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether 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 ratcheting 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.

All right. Anyway. Everyday norms in Australia.

Everyday norms.

The hard part about something like this is that you don't know they're norms because they're norms.

I know! I'll give you. As somebody who has travelled a lot in North America, particularly in Canada.

Mhm.

Everyday norms in Australia, we think we have seasons. But we don't. I'm dressed for the cold at the moment. I have a pair of jeans, a shirt and a long sleeve shirt.

And someone in Canada would be like..

And somebody, No, you're not dressed for the cold, right.

This is summer..

I know exactly. Yesterday I was walking out of the day before. I was walking around in shorts and a t shirt. On Tuesday, when we, you know, took the kids to the swimming pool, walking around on shirts. And it's the middle of winter. So we don't have seasons. The norms in Australia are we don't have the seasons that people from Europe..

Yeah.

And North America are used to.

What is the main reason for that? Like what? Why don't we get as cold a winters here when we are as far?

Do you want to know? Geography. Geographically?

Yeah..

There's two things. One is that we are not nowhere near as far south as most of the population is north.

Yeah, okay.

So Canada is above the 49th parallel.

Yeah. And we're in the..

Hobart, which is..

37th is in the..

South of Tasmania. The south of Australia is in the 41st parallel.

Yeah. Okay.

So, um, and most of Europe is above the 45th parallel.

So you'd have to go like another 500km south.

So the other thing is, we have the Southern Ocean.

Yeah.

So the Southern Ocean, which is effectively circum...

Navigate..?

Navigates. It goes completely around Antarctica.

Yeah.

And it isolates the cold.

Yeah. Okay.

From, yeah. We've got, in order for cold air to come from Antarctica to Australia. It's got to cross 1500 to 2000km of ocean.

And it's not sort of..

And the ocean..

Along the side of..

Exactly.

Another continent.

Or something. And the ocean is going to warm it up. By the time it gets here, it's warm. So we talk about, you know, the cold Antarctic winds. We don't get Antarctic winds here. We get a cold south westerly wind that all the air temperature has dropped to zero. But the the wind is coming in. It's ten degrees. So because it's coming off an ocean, it's 15 degrees. 14 degrees.

Yeah. So I guess the tolerances are a lot, a lot like the margins are crushed.

Yeah.

It always blows my mind when you see those places in like Canada where it gets to like -30 and positive 30, you know, it's somewhat of winter and you're like..

Yeah, spent a lot of time in southern Ontario.

Yeah.

Gets down to the coldest temperature I've had there is -30.

Yeah.

Which for Canada isn't particularly cold, but it's not unusual to have 35 degree days in summer.

Yeah, I remember when we were there, I think it was summer, right when we were going to the beach and I thought, oh, it's going to be nice and warm. And the water was like..

Oh, you're in British Columbia. Yeah.

And the kids, the girls were in the in the water, in just bathers.

Yeah.

Um. And I'm like, you need a fucking wet suit. I'm not getting in that shit. What am I gonna do, submerge myself for two minutes and then get out with hypothermia?

The water's eight degrees.

Yeah, exactly. I was like, you guys are nutjobs. And they're like, Isn't that lovely? Oh, man, that was that was, um. Yeah. Terrible. Far out.

Yes.

But yeah, it is interesting, I guess. Do you wish we had colder places in Australia with more snow and that kind of climate? Or you're like, fuck..

I don't like cold.

Does anyone?

Well, I don't know. Yeah, well, yeah, she's weird because..

She says she does.

.. tropics!

But we don't live somewhere currently.

No, she doesn't, she doesn't understand.

She doesn't know how cold.

Has she actually been to somewhere that's -20 degrees?

Well, she went to, um, we went to Perisher and she got, like, hypothermia.

And it's zero! Yeah. Like.

She. It was a weird story. We went there because I wanted to show her the snow. This is when we were living in, um, Canberra, and we went there. I think we drove. It would have been like 3 or 4 hours there and back or whatever it was, and we got out and it would have been sort of the afternoon. We're playing around. We didn't have proper snow clothing, but it wasn't like -20 or something. It was probably zero degrees or, you know, a bit above. And we played around and were mucking around in the snow and like building snowmen. And she was like, Yeah, snow! I'd never seen it here. And then um, all of a sudden she's like, My hands really hurt. My body hurts. Can we go inside somewhere warm?

She's got too cold.

And for like, an hour, she was there. Just like, This is the most pain I have ever experienced and was like, we had to. I had to say I was like, Do we call an ambulance? Kelly, are you okay? She's like, Just, just wait. And then eventually she warmed up again and I was like, good grief. She must have been right on the cusp of her. Her internal body temperature must have been dropping down and everything was saying, get out, get out. But yeah. So that was interesting.

Yeah. So, yeah. Your mother always used to be sad because I used to go to, um, to southern Ontario in January, February every year. Because the company I worked for had the annual whole company meeting at the beginning of the year.

Yeah.

And, uh, your mother was always saying, because she used to come with me most of the time we went.

Free holiday, weew!

And never did it in winter, and I, she was always going, Oh, you know, I'd love to come. I said, No, you wouldn't. You'd hate it.

Yeah.

Trust me..

You're the whole time..

It's horrible.

Well, I think the thing that would make it suck the most for me would be the lack of light. I think it would be the amount of darkness.

Well, but in southern Ontario, it's not too bad. But yeah..

But those kinds of areas in the northern.

Oh the north..

Northern or southern hemisphere, there's not many in the southern hemisphere.

No, you've got..

The northern hemisphere. Yeah. Exactly. Where during winter..

Southern Chile..

Like I think I had a, I had friends in Estonia and, um, they'll send me, you know, hey, Pete, look outside and I'm like, Oh, shit, is it midnight? And he'll be like, 3 p.m.

Yeah.

I'll be like, God damn, dude.

Yeah.

He's like, yep, I haven't, I haven't. What would he say? He'd be like, I have work during the day and I haven't seen the sun outside for two months, three months, four months. You know, he'll just be like, I wake up in the dark, I go to work, I leave and it's dark.

You remember the teacher from your primary school who went to Fairbanks, Alaska, on an exchange.

Mr. Cunningham?

Yeah. And he sent a postcard back. We got it middle of February, but he sent a postcard back. Like he went on Christmas Eve. So he arrived there on Christmas Eve. And he got we got a postcard back from the middle of February that said, "The sun came up today!" Because he hadn't seen the sun for five weeks!

Yeah.

Because he's above the Arctic Circle.

Wasn't he saying to you something about golfing?

Oh, yeah. And he said..

It was free after midnight?

Yeah. And in summer said, because it doesn't get dark.

Yeah.

He said, yeah. You know, it's summer when the the signs on the golf course changed. You know, green fees, half price after midnight.

I, part of me would think that would be fun. But then I wonder if you had a summer where it was, like, always light to some degree. Would it drive you nuts? Because you would need, like, foil on the window just to get the dark out?

He said, people don't sleep.

Yeah.

Well they have, and he said. And he said that that is not a euphemism.

Yeah.

He said they actually don't. They have, you know, a couple of little naps during the day..

Yeah.

Where because they're up for 20 hours a day.

It would be so interesting to see how it affects your circadian rhythm. Because I remember..

There isn't one.

Well, again, watching a lot of these archaeological documentaries on people in the past, apparently the whole, you know, 9 to 5 workday and then sleeping from like, you know, I don't know, nine until 7 a.m. is a very modern setup. And that back in the day you would..

6 till 6.

You would work from light to dark.

You'd work 12 hours, then you sleep.

But then you would get up. You'd get up multiple times during the night. And so there were a whole bunch of these things I was watching where they would be like, you have your first sleep and that'll be four hours or so. Then you get up and you do a bunch of chores around the house, some cleaning..

In the dark.

Stuff. Yeah, well..

You would have cleaned in the dark.

I don't know, but. And then you go back to sleep where you might, you know, I don't know. There were a whole bunch of these, these dockers that were talking about how the sleep cycle wasn't one big chunk. It would be broken up into two, and there would be a period of..

Hey, you get to buy agent. It isn't either.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, man.

Once or twice a night, you're up.

I, it's me. It's more. I'm. I go to sleep at night and it tends to be shorter than it used to be the entire time. And then during the day, I'm fucking wrecked, so I have a nap.

Yeah. Hey, grandpa naps are good things.

Nana naps.

Nana naps. Yeah.

So, anyway, yeah, some of the ones that were listening to..

So what do they got?

Walking bare feet at home and um..

Oh, yeah. Well, that's that's the, you know, we don't have winter, it's..

Shoeless indoors. It's like, that's not fucking weird.

No. That's very, that's North American. And European.

'Shoeless outside', I would have thought would be one of those strange norms.

They have mud, mud rooms in Canada, in particular. I haven't spent much time in or I've only been to the UK and in Europe and only in summer.

Is that where you've got a..

Mud rooms are..

Between?

A room in between. Yeah, like the rear entrance.

Like a porch type thing. But it's a room.

It's a room. And you take off your jacket and you take off your boots, and you take off your scarf, and you take off it because there's snow and mud and everything. And then. Yeah. And people don't, you know, they. We do it because we're sort of used to it. If you take off your shoes at the front door.

Yeah.

That's rare in Australia. Most Australian houses don't do that.

Well, I'll just leave there.

They're just shoes. Just walk in with your shoes, you know.

Yeah.

Close your shoes at the door mat at the front door. But you just walk in, you know.

The Asians. The Japanese, will be listening to this, like, You disgusting pigs.

I know. Yeah, exactly.

Just dragging in everything from outside and just walking her through the house.

But that's, that's typical in Australia. Whereas. Yeah, certainly where there is, you know, the cold weather and winter, you wouldn't even think about doing that.

Yeah. Is that you or me? Dad's famous. He's getting a call.

I am, it's your mother..

You know, what it's going to be? It's going to be known- oh, no, it is? It is?

It is. It's your mother. I'll ignore her.

She could have made a sudden appearance in the book.

I could have put her on speaker.

And I think the slang words and the calling everyone with E, and..

E and O.

At the end of, like, Steve-o and..

Steve-o. Robbie. Yeah.

Brissy as the bris- Brisbane becoming Brissy. Talking to strangers. Whether it's at a cafe line or a bus stop. Friendly banter as usual. This is one of those funny things.

G'day, mate!

I chat to, to students all the time when I'm doing these..

Americans do it, too.

What? Small talk?

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's like for me, especially when talking to northern Europeans. And how in Australia it would be considered rude if you were not rude, but like awkward if you didn't make small talk and you're in a situation, like..

Oh the bus stop! The bus stop talk is the classic. You've got a person who's sitting down at the bus stop. You know, there's a, you know, small little enclosure, um, person sitting down waiting for the bus to come and you turn up.

Yeah.

If you just sat down there and said nothing.

The person's like, Ohh, he's a creep.

Ohh, creeper. What's going on? Would you walk out..

Can I have your news..

Yeah, exactly.

I know, and that was funny because you talk to my friends from places like Finland and Estonia and they're like, Dude, you do not talk to people outside the house. If you say anything, they're going to be like this, this psycho, this psychopath. He's got schizophrenia or something. What does he want? Uh. There's this. It's funny, there's this Estonian, um, comedian in the US, and he has this joke about, like, homeless people in America, and, like, you know, he'll be like, I had this house, and I came outside and there's this guy like, uh. And he's like, oh, everyone would just be like, that's Mike, that's Mike. And he's like, someone shoot Mike! Like, like somebody shoot him. And he's like, we have homeless in Estonia. But every year it's a new batch because the winter kills them. And he's like, you don't have to deal with this thing. Yeah, it's just really funny sort of. But yeah, it is.

I like that, 'every year is a new batch'.

Yeah. It's so funny.

I don't like it.

But you would, um, you would feel awkward not making small talk, even if it was just the bare minimum of like, Hey, how's it going? Just acknowledging someone's presence there. You would I my assumption would be a fucking weirdo. Like he's a weirdo.

There's also a my experience, which is not necessarily universal. Um, is that that's, um, locality dependent as well?

Yes.

Very common in Melbourne. Well, Melbourne's the friendliest city in Australia. Um, you go to Adelaide and you do that and be a fucking weirdo. Um.

Really?

Go to Sydney? And, Just get out of my way.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. I don't know what it is. It's, um.

And then the smaller the town you go to..

To test, I- Oh, yeah. Oh, you go to a small town, yeah. You end up saying. Yeah. Okay. You be start looking at the risk that, you used to have a watch on it..

Well, we're on Lord Howe Island, and the number of people that would just stop you to chat and you'd be like, fuck, man, I've got to go somewhere.

Yeah, I'm just..

.. To do. I don't want to talk.

Kind of go lie on the beach.

Can you just leave me alone? I've taken, like, five steps outside the house and I'm not having a chat with the gardener. Oh, God damn it.

Yeah, the the test, I think, for that is, uh, it's much less common these days because everything is digital. Um, is if you go and stand on a street corner in the CBD centre of Melbourne and open up a street map.

Yeah, I think you've mentioned..

The first person to walk past you will say, You all right? You need a hand? You know what, where are you trying to get to..

The first Australian to walk past you..

Yeah right. Yeah, right. So after 20,000 Asian students who don't speak English have walked past.

Who weren't interested.

The first person from Melbourne.

Is your problem.

Yeah, will just go. Well, they got. I got the same problem. I don't know where I'm going. Um, and you're right.

You know what? I would be..

.. be going?

I'd be like, how did this person get a fucking map?

Yeah.

Don't they have GPS?

But that's what I mean. Now it's different. Whereas in Sydney, if you do that in Sydney, it'll be, Get out of my way. And, I'm walking through here!

You know, I haven't spent enough time in Sydney's..

In the central business. Sydney is just different. It's just. It's busier.

It's disgusting.

No, it's a lovely place. It's very pretty, but it's just busier.

Just as long as you're outside of it looking in, you know, don't live there, right? Uh, barbecue culture.

Ehh, Americans is the same.

Is it? What with having loads of barbecues like campsite barbecues or..

More so. Yeah, barbecues are an art form in America.

Yes.

But although they have different..

.. heart disease.

But yeah, barbecue in America is not 'throw sausages on a grill'.

No.

It's. You are. Barbecue is a very specific thing where you are slow cooking meat and you're putting your own blended dry rub and sauce and..

Ours is filth compared to what other places do. Pretty much everywhere. You hear about, like Argentinian barbecue, Brazilian barbecue here about the Middle East and stuff. And you're like, this just shits on Australian chops and snags..

Yeah, whereas our is.. Yeah, throw a few sausages and lamb chops on the barbecue and..

It'll keep you alive!

Yeah.

Can you eat it? Yeah, but it tastes like shit.

It's the amount of beer you can consume in the production of it. That's the important thing.

We're getting silly after two beers.

We are.

Driving etiquette. Making eye contact after a courtesy wave.

Oh, absolutely. I, I, I have this thing about I wave at everybody anyway, just to make it feel like..

.. while you're driving around. G'day, cunts!

Sorry, I'm getting over a cold. You make me laugh.

Dad just sets the window down with his arm. Constantly!

Wait, a little Chinese cat?

Yeah, that's it!

The wave!

The golden cat or the, the queen wave.

Yeah. No, but it's that, you know, the one that irritates me is that because there are a lot of- around where we are, there's a lot of narrow streets.

Yes.

And so if there's cars parked on both sides, you can only get one car through at a time. So if you stop and let somebody through.

Yeah.

The natural thing to do is to just even just stick a finger up, wave.

Acknowledge.

Acknowledge, thanking you. And when they don't.

It's- my wife. My wife always tells that we're driving around and we have the exact same thing. So there's two way streets, but cars park on the side so often only one can get by at a time. And the first person to get there usually comes through and the next person will wait. And the number of times, Kel will be like, Why are you so angry? Because I'll be like, I'll pull over and I'm like, okay, wait for them to come through, give them a wave. They give me nothing and I'll be like, You fucking- are you fucking- how you- fucking dog? How did you not- give me the minimum? Just give me your finger!

Just a little wave! You don't. Your thumb doesn't need to leave the steering wheel.

No. And it's so funny how slighted.

I know!

It's like you've spat in my mouth. It's like, you just feel dirty. You're like, You bastard! But it's such a trivial thing, and it's like, I think Kel would be like, this is not a thing in Brazil.

No.

It would just. You would just drive past and be like, okay.

Yeah. You know..

Whereas in Australia, it's so personal.

If you take it personally. The other thing too is because I drive a sort of rare imported vehicle, which sounds terribly exotic, but it's, it's nearly 20 years old. So.

What is it? It's a Toyota, right?

No, it's a Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi. Yeah.

Like, it's a van that I've converted into a camper.

Yeah.

Every Delica driver waves.

Yeah.

When you drive past. And every now and then, you wave. And you don't get the wave back and you go. They can't have seen me. What's going on? But you know, you start following them. Hey hey hey hey hey! And waving at them. You know.

It's like, um, Prius drivers, right? Oh, yeah. Can we smell each other's farts?

Like vegans? Yeah.

All right. This is going to be a Members Only episode.

Yeah.

Um. Driving etiquette. Making eye contact. Yeah. The courtesy wave. So we did that. Um. What else? Um. Quick weather talk. Yeah. Chat about the weather. It's a good icebreaker.

Good icebreaker.

Hey, how you going? Uh. All right. Crappy day. Yeah. Dude, the weather's good out there. It is the icebreaker. And it's the icebreaker, even with people, you know.

But imagine not doing..

How you're going?

Yeah.

The answer is always 'okay'. You never actually tell them how you're going.

But imagine if you were really specific.

Okay. Crappy day. Yeah. Sorry about the rain.

Yeah. It's okay. Prostate is playing up.

Yeah.

Like, you would just be like. Dude.

What? What!?

How are you going? It's not an inquiry after your health. It is a different spelling of the word 'hello'.

I know, but no, but it is funny. Like, just even in terms of, like, small talk. If you were to bring up the wrong thing, people would just be like. Did you just have a stroke?

Yeah.

What the fuck was that? Like what? Your cat died, you know, or I just, you know, I don't know. My arthritis is playing up. You'd be like, dude, I'm not a doctor. What are you talking about? Don't tell me that.

That's what I said. It is not an invitation to discuss your health. It is just another word for 'hello'. But yeah, the weather is one that everybody talks about the weather and..

But that's also because at least here changes so often.

It does!

It is a problem.

It does.

One way or the other.

And a friend who, um, went to university in San Diego, and the first time I went to San Diego to a conference, um, I asked him, I said, what's the weather going to be like? And he said, just look it up. I said, what do you mean?

What?

And he said, no, if you look it up today, it'll be like that for the next three months. It's never changes.

That's Cairns. That's Cairns.

23 degrees and it won't rain. Over, over their summer. And in winter, it's 22 degrees and it'll sort of rain. Um, and.

Where is he? I know. You used to drive me nuts when living in Melbourne and having to pack. Like, if you're in shorts, pack pants. If you're wearing a jacket, make sure you've got a t shirt or, you know, make sure you have some sort of thing that if it gets, if it is hot right now, it's probably going to be cold later. If it's cold now, it'll probably be raining.

Still, take an umbrella because it's likely to rain.

Exactly. That would always drive me nuts.

Another friend who, you know grew up in Southern California, and when he came to Australia, he and his wife, he said, you spend five minutes of a half hour news on the weather. We don't even talk about the weather. You've got to go to a weather channel to get the weather.

Wow. Yeah.

So.

Yeah, I don't know. Any other norms that you can think of?

Norms? Mmm. No.

I think it's probably also the informal, informality with people.

Oh, yeah.

That you. And that's what I really enjoy that you can make. It's not with everyone and it's not with most people, but there's definitely sometimes you just get it and you click and you're just like, Oh, you're my person. Like, we're the same type of person.

But we are particularly informal in even..

Yes.

Most of our prime ministers in my lifetime, even the ones that I don't like politically. Um, some to the point of hatred is a strong word, but close they would be. They'd still be the guy that, you know, you're walking down the street. They. They'd be walking out. G'day, mate. How're you going?

Well, and I say this to my students quite often where I'm like, I. It was funny. I've got a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. So, hello, Sister Anne, if you're listening to this, she's amazing. She got to meet, um, Prime minister uh, Albanese. Went to his lodge and had a talk to him with the Vietnamese community. And she was like I said to her, I was like, it's funny, isn't it? How we have prime ministers who will probably say, Don't call me Prime Minister. Call me Albo. Call me- you use my first name.

Yeah.

And she was like, yeah, he told me to call him Albo. That's what everybody was like, I told you! I told you, yeah. Like we have this. We don't like being put above other people.

Yeah.

Even if you are, generally, if you are upper class or whatever, or rich or famous or whatever, you're going to just say, just use my first name. It's my first name.

Yeah.

You know, and so you will have even the Prime minister of the country will say, just..

Call me by my nickname.

Call me. Yeah. Call me Jeff, call me whatever you want. But just don't call me Prime Minister. Like, good grief.

Yeah.

I would like to think, you know, the first and- the first prime minister that we ever get who says, 'No, call me Prime Minister' would never live it down.

No.

We'd never leave it dow- he would be getting called that for the rest of his life.

[Noah's voice] Oh, really?

Is she?

Okay! Sweet. Say hello, Noah.

Hey, well, we're doing a podcast. What are you up to?

I got here and I'm waiting for Mum.

Okay, cool little uhh..

Goodbye!

Prompt you to..

Visit a little bit.. Joey's coming!

I know, yeah. Anyway, so. Yeah, that's probably..

I suspect we'll get another interruption.

Yes. Um, I don't know what else. It's really it. Really, I don't know. Yeah, probably the informality, the amount of swearing. And I try and- I try it with these podcasts. You will hear me swear. You probably heard me say 'cunt' 'fuck' in this episode. I try and speak as I would with people I'm friendly with.

Yeah.

Naturally. I try..

A natural conversation. Not to- you're not talking to your grandmother.

Oh no. Though it is one of those things. I could probably use those..

.. If she can't hear you anyway. So.

I think I could use those words in front of her and she wouldn't have even heard them.

That's what I mean. She's deaf anyway.

But not even that. She wouldn't know what they were.

She wouldn't know what they were.

She. But she would pretend not to know.

Oh, yeah.

That's how.

Bad words. Not allowed to use bad words.

I can't even. Ah, if I say 'g'day cunt' or something like that, she'd drop dead, you know. She'd be so shocked. But yes, I try and I think the amount of swearing. It's really funny. I have one one. One of my students is, um, Middle Eastern and he. He swears a lot with me, but you can tell he works with a lot of Australian tradies.

Yeah.

It's it's like using the F-bomb all 'oh fucking I was..', 'that fucking oh..', and 'fucking..' And I'll be like God damn dude. Like I get it, I get it. You've been hanging out with these guys.

Yeah. My sister used to call the forkin' forking boys. Yeah,

Exactly. Anyway, that's probably enough for this one. Thanks for joining us, guys.

Bye!

See you next time!