Transcript of AE 1429 - Do Aussies Actually Use These 10 Slang Terms? - Does Dad Know It? Ep 2

Pete:
G'day you mob. Welcome to Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go.

Pete:
G'day you mob. Pete here from Aussie English. Welcome to another episode of Does Dad Know It? This is episode two. Go check out number one if you haven't already caught it. This is a series where I test my dad on Aussie slang terms and expressions to see whether he actually knows them, what they mean, whether he'd actually use them, and if it's something that other Australians actually say. Okay, so if you want to learn over 1001 Australian slang words and expressions. Go grab my Aussie Slang Dictionary e-book at www.slangebook.com. One more time. That is www.slangebook.com. All right, dad, let's get into it.

Ian:
Go!

Pete:
Ducks guts.

Ian:
Ducks guts or the ducks nuts.

Pete:
You could use both in this one, right?

Ian:
Exactly.

Pete:
Yeah. So something could be the ducks.

Ian:
It means it's really good.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Yeah. I'm not sure why. Why?

Pete:
Neither of those things seem particularly appealing...

Ian:
Bird intestines or bird testicles are actually supposed to be that good. But.

Pete:
I think it's probably a rhyming thing...

Ian:
Yeah, but I don't know where it came from. Something ending in -uts.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
Yeah, the ducks guts. The ducks nuts.

Pete:
Let's have a look. Let's have a quick squiz see if we can find anything.

Ian:
Quick Squiz. There's another one you can use.

Pete:
I know. Squiz...

Ian:
That'll be a quick look. Three.

Pete:
It sounds at least based on the, the, um, little AI overview thing I've got here from Google. When I've searched this, it says there's a nut variant and a gut variant and it's from- Pop culture, comes from the... It got immortalised in the movie Mad Max?

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
In 1979, and it doesn't seem like there's...

Ian:
So the writers for that just made it up.

Pete:
I don't know if they. It came from there originally, but it's like bee's knees. I don't know if there's really a rhyming thing or anything that it originated from. It's just, oh, this is cute, you know, and, and memorable. The duck's guts. So what is the duck's guts? If something is the duck's guts or the duck's nuts?

Ian:
It means it's really good!

Pete:
What for you has been the duck's guts recently.

Ian:
Holiday in Scotland!

Pete:
That was the ducks.

Ian:
The duck's guts. I wouldn't use duck's guts. I'm always a duck's nuts, man.

Pete:
I just prefer nuts to guts. Huh?

Ian:
No. No justification.

Pete:
If you had to choose between the two. I don't know, dad. I think I'd go guts.

Ian:
There's no logic to that. It just is.

Pete:
Would you use it?

Ian:
No, no. Not really.

Pete:
You hear it?

Ian:
I joke jokingly. Use it occasionally. Yeah, yeah, you hear it? Yeah. It's a duck's nuts, mate.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that it's another one of those ones where I have heard this. I know it's a thing. I don't say it myself. No, I don't catch my I just say that's it's great. It's awesome. There'd be ones like tits. That's another.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
When I was younger I used to. Oh that's tits, my tits. And that would. I guess it's probably related to breasts, right. Meaning breasts are amazing for men. But but it became this thing of, like, that thing's cool. Yeah. That's tits. I haven't said that in a long time, but I remember.

Ian:
But it's usually the tits.

Pete:
You can say that as well.

Ian:
It's the tits.

Pete:
All right. Number two, blow the froth off a few.

Ian:
Well, that one is literal.

Pete:
Yes.

Ian:
That is actually to drink beer. Usually when beer is poured it has a frothy head on it. And you traditionally a lot of old Australians used to literally just blow the froth off it before they would start to drink it rather than getting your, as Pete and I both are, have hirsute faces, you end up with the froth all over your beard and your moustache.

Pete:
Ah! Gotcha!

Ian:
You blow the froth off before you drink it.

Pete:
Ah! Is that why they did it? To avoid it getting in the beard?

Ian:
I don't know why, but.

Pete:
Where did you first hear this?

Ian:
I don't know.

Pete:
I first heard this...

Ian:
In a movie?

Pete:
Is it Crocodile Dundee?

Ian:
Yeah, well, probably heard it before then.

Pete:
He's. He's at the pub or where? It would be a- god, what would they call it, a club or something in America?

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
It's like the second half of the first movie. I think when he goes to a club or the equivalent of a pub and he's just having a drink and they're like, he this guy comes over and he's like, what are you up to? And he's like, oh no, just blowing the froth off of you. And he's like, you what? So is this something you use?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
No? I, I'd probably.

Ian:
I don't use it, but I, I hear, you hear it occasionally.

Pete:
Yeah. Another one.

Ian:
I think it's one of those ones that sort of dropped out of the common vernacular.

Pete:
Would you encourage people to use this? Like if you, if you, with the migrants listening to this, if they drink beer and they go to a pub, is this the kind of thing that you would say, you know, just chuck it in there something, you know, what are you up to? Oh, just blowing the froth off a few.

Ian:
You'll have a few people rolling in the aisles laughing.

Pete:
Or you can say Get that froth!

Pete:
Having a few frothies.

Ian:
Yeah. That's enough frothies. Yeah.

Pete:
I don't know. That's the hard part of this job. It's always like I feel like migrants can get away with using a few more of these terms that are less common and are kind of a bit more idiomatic. And, um...

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
You know, they, they put a picture in the head of the listener. Because if I did, it's kind of not really funny or like, you know, but if you're, I don't know, from Iran or China,

Ian:
Well, it's completely unexpected.

Pete:
Yeah, mate, I'm just going to have a blow the froth off a few. Cause people would be like, that's awesome dude. Good job. You know, well done.

Ian:
Particularly if they didn't do it in an Australian accent.

Pete:
100%. Yeah. It's funny though, I think if you heard Americans doing it, you'd just be.

Ian:
Yeah, are you taking the piss, mate?

Pete:
Cut it out. Fuck off. Yeah, because we're so used to being teased, you know, by them. Right? All right. Number three, back of Bourke.

Ian:
Back of Bourke means a long way out back. Out in the middle of Australia. Nowhere near, funnily enough, the town of Bourke, which is in outback New South Wales.

Pete:
So do you reckon it comes from that originally, that idea of Bourke being a long way away?

Ian:
Burke was a long way away. It's one of the most remote towns in New South Wales.

Pete:
Yeah.

Ian:
It's about as far away as you can get from Sydney and still be in New South Wales.

Pete:
Oh, okay.

Ian:
Where a town is, it's not you know, you can go further away, but.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ian:
So if you went back at Bourke, meaning beyond Bourke, it meant you were really out of the way.

Pete:
Yeah. So a place that's extremely remote. So how would you use this and would you use it?

Ian:
Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Occasionally it's but it's, it's that sort of and again, because it has the literal meaning of going, you know, past the town of Bourke, you've got to be careful. Where are you going? Oh, back of Bourke. Oh really? Cunnamulla? You know.

Pete:
Oh. Like as if the people know the place. Yeah.

Ian:
Who's Bourke?! Yeah..

Pete:
Yeah. So how would you use it in a sentence?

Ian:
Where's Bill? I haven't seen him for a while. Oh, he's out camping in the back of Bourke.

Pete:
Gotcha. All right. Another B one. I got a few of them in this in today's alliterations. Yeah. Barry Crocker.

Ian:
A Barry Crocker. That's just rhyming slang for a shocker.

Pete:
Yeah. Do you want to explain what a shocker.

Ian:
A shocker is something that you did badly.

Pete:
Complete disaster, right.

Ian:
A complete disaster.

Pete:
Something terrible.

Ian:
Yeah, a shocker.

Pete:
Oh, what a shocker.

Ian:
Barry Crocker was a, a song and dance man from the 1960s and 70s.

Pete:
I would have no idea who this person is.

Ian:
And then he became an actor. And so...

Pete:
It's funny, isn't it, that you would know him from being that, from that era as the famous guy first, and then one generation or two removed..

Ian:
People still use the expression and have no idea who Barry Crocker was.

Pete:
That's it. What's the other one? There's like, happy as Larry.

Ian:
Happy as Larry.

Pete:
And wasn't it related to boxing or something? And him being punched out or something? Smiling with stars around his head or something? There was some weird.

Ian:
I don't know.

Pete:
Yeah. Okay, so when would you use the phrase Barry Crocker?

Ian:
Yeah. My football team last weekend got beaten by 90 points. Yeah, me. Mine too mate. It's a bloody Barry Crocker!

Pete:
That's a good one. So would you use that? Or..

Ian:
No.

Pete:
It's a bit outdated?

Ian:
I would say it was a shocker, but it's a little bit outdated.

Pete:
Again, though, you would be able to use it and it'd be funny.

Ian:
Yeah. And people would know what it was. Yeah. Even people who didn't know Barry Crocker but.

Pete:
Yeah, yeah. Barry Crocker. All right. Next one. Number five a bingle.

Ian:
A bingle is a crash, usually in a car.

Pete:
Yeah, a minor bingle.

Ian:
Yeah. A minor bingle.

Pete:
Do you have a big bingle? A major bingle? Or does it tend to be kind of minor..

Ian:
Bingle? Sort of mean, yeah, a- a fender bender.

Pete:
A little..

Ian:
A little, American version of it.

Pete:
So you've had like literally the fender of your car has been bent.

Ian:
Yeah, ding- ding a panel or something.

Pete:
So how would you use Bingle in a sentence?

Ian:
Just literally that I was down the shops the other day and had a bingle with a guy on a motorcycle.

Pete:
Do you use that?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
No? You feel like it's outdated or you just don't know?

Ian:
I just, I don't know, it's just not one that I use. But it's yeah, it's within the broader vernacular, but I just, you know, don't tend to whip it out very often. Not that I have bingles very often.

Pete:
On a daily basis. Number six, a Balmain bulldozer. Let me say it again so people can understand. A Balmain bulldozer.

Ian:
Balmain bulldozer.

Pete:
I think we've got to our first one that dad doesn't exactly.

Ian:
The B alliterations have got me! A Balmain bulldozer.

Pete:
Balmain is a suburb...

Pete:
It's a suburb in Sydney.

Pete:
Yeah, that's what I. This is probably why we don't understand it. I think you would call it a Toorak bulldozer or.

Ian:
Oh, Toorak tractor. Yeah. There you go.

Pete:
Is that what they actually are? Toorak tractor.

Ian:
Yeah. All right. A large four wheel drive usually driven by a 30 to 40 something year old woman to take her children to school.

Pete:
Yes. So it's a large four wheel drive that's never taken off road.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
So I guess the joke is that this suburb, Balmain or Toorak, these are very, very, very expensive suburbs that super rich people live in and they often buy these large four wheel drives. So I guess we had tractor or bulldozer as the joke here, but they don't use them for what they're made for. They take their kids to school or to sports.

Ian:
Go to the shopping...

Pete:
Yes, in these four wheel drives or large vehicles. So yeah.

Ian:
One and a half car spaces in the shopping.

Pete:
So how would you use Balmain bulldozer?

Ian:
Or Toorak tractor? Or Toorak tractor? I think we've just explained it.

Pete:
In a sentence.

Ian:
In a sentence. Yeah, I was down picking up the grandkids from school and all I could see was bloody Balmain bulldozers and Toorak tractors in the car park.

Pete:
Again, that would be so. I think if I heard a foreigner saying that, I would be pissing myself because there's such a deep understanding of cultural pop, cultural situations.

Ian:
And in multiple levels!

Pete:
Yeah, there's so much...

Ian:
To understand Balmain and Toorak.

Pete:
That's it.

Ian:
You have to understand that that bulldozer and tractor is a...

Pete:
Taking the piss.

Ian:
Insulting metaphor for...

Pete:
For four wheel drives. Yeah. And then you have to understand that a lot of wealthier people in these areas buy these huge cars that they don't actually use.

Ian:
For the purpose for which they were designed.

Pete:
Exactly.

Ian:
You got another one?

Pete:
I do. I'm up to. There's a whole bunch in a row. I don't know if that was chance or what, but, um. Boofhead.

Ian:
Boofhead?

Pete:
Boofhead.

Ian:
Boofhead?

Pete:
Are you, are you a boofhead?

Ian:
Yeah. No,

Pete:
No?

Ian:
No. Boofhead means somebody who is, not quite intellectually challenged, but a bit dopey and tends to do stupid things.

Pete:
It's kind of affectionate!

Ian:
It is, but it almost always refers to large men. You wouldn't call a girl a boofhead, or you wouldn't call a young boy a boofhead.

Pete:
You would do it with a girl. But you'd be like, ironic?

Ian:
Yeah, exactly.

Pete:
It would be like, she's not...

Ian:
Usually been the big dopey, Oh, yeah. She'd be right, mate.

Pete:
Yeah, I gotcha. The classic example, I think, is the guy Donk, out of Crocodile Dundee. Right.

Ian:
Yeah, boofhead, yeah.

Pete:
You know where there's that scene where I've forgotten his name? The little guy with the hat and he's in the outback and they've come trying to find Mick Dundee. And this guy is like holding a gun. And he's like, well, you should have had a gun. You're holding a beer. And he's like, I don't need a gun, mate. I got a donk! And the guy's like, what's a donk? And he, this big guy appears behind him and says, it's me. And it just smacks him on the head. So he's a boofhead. You don't use it? I feel like...

Ian:
I do, I do use boofhead.

Pete:
Just didn't want to admit it.

Ian:
Boofhead or fathead?

Pete:
Fathead. It's funny that fathead is used to mean someone that's, I guess, silly, foolish, or stupid when I guess the idea is you have a lot a big head.

Ian:
Yes!

Pete:
You would. You would think it'd be the opposite.

Ian:
I know, for no apparent reason. Those two are associated.

Pete:
Yeah. So how would you use boofhead in a sentence?

Ian:
I think we just have. Yeah, yeah. Good one. Somebody does something stupid and go, Yeah. Good one, boofhead.

Pete:
That's yeah, that's a classic one. And it's gendered language. I don't think women would use this, would they?

Ian:
No, you wouldn't use it. A woman wouldn't use it and you wouldn't use it about a woman? Yeah.

Pete:
It's funny how that's..

Ian:
It's men insulting other men.

Pete:
There's a bit of that in in probably all languages, but in English in particular, like women calling their friends girlfriends.

Ian:
Yes.

Pete:
You would never call your male friends boyfriends.

Ian:
No!

Pete:
You would definitely give off the wrong idea.

Ian:
Exactly.

Pete:
I'm hanging out with my boyfriends.

Ian:
With my three boyfriends.

Pete:
Oh, Jesus.

Ian:
You got three? Yeah, that's a bit greedy.

Pete:
Oh, we got a little callback for the next one. Okay, so this one is number eight. Ken oath!

Ian:
Ken oath!

Pete:
Okay, so this is related to my oath that we had in the last episode...

Ian:
... To his cousin Ken.

Pete:
So 'ken oath'.

Ian:
Ken oath..

Pete:
What does it mean?

Ian:
It's a contraction of "fucken' oath".

Pete:
Fucking oath.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
ken oath!

Ian:
And you have to drop the G. It's F U C K E N.

Pete:
Ken oath.

Ian:
And hence, K E N oath. Fucking oath means you are agreeing with something vociferously.

Pete:
And it's what we do it in a way of avoiding saying fuck, right? So you can just say, ken oath.

Ian:
Ken oath, mate!

Pete:
It's like it's a little bit more extreme than 'bloody oath' or 'hell yeah', but you're not swearing.

Ian:
No. Exactly.

Pete:
So. You could use it in a business meeting. People would probably still be shocked.

Ian:
Ah, ken oath!

Pete:
But you could be like, look, I didn't swear. Technically. So.

Ian:
As long as the bosses name is not Ken. You're probably alright.

Pete:
Well, then he'd probably laugh even more. How would you use this in a sentence?

Ian:
Just that.

Pete:
Ken oath.

Ian:
Ken oath. Yeah.

Pete:
So it's just when you agree with someone.

Ian:
When you agree with someone.

Pete:
Are you keen for a barbie on the weekend?

Ian:
Oh, ken oath!

Pete:
Ken oath, mate! Ken oath.

Ian:
Ken oath.

Pete:
All right, number nine. She'll be right.

Ian:
She'll be right, ken oath!

Pete:
Who's she?

Ian:
She'll she'll be. She is the universal, gender non-specific term for anything. She'll be right.

Pete:
So what does this mean? How would you use it?

Ian:
It means it will all be okay.

Pete:
She will be all right. It will be all right.

Pete:
It will be okay.

Pete:
Everything will be fine. Don't stress.

Ian:
She'll be right.

Pete:
She'll be right. So you do this to kind of like, reassure someone.

Ian:
Yeah, yeah. And someone comes in and says, oh, look, I've just, you know, I can't find my dog. He's run out. I broke out the back fence. Oh, she'll be right. It'll come back.

Pete:
Yeah. She'll come back. Yeah.

Ian:
It will come back. It's not referring to the gender of the dog.

Pete:
That's true. All right. Number ten. Servo. Servo.

Ian:
A servo is a fuel station. A petrol station.

Pete:
What's it short for?

Ian:
Service station.

Pete:
Why was it called a service station?

Ian:
Because they used to have mechanics that worked there. But now...

Pete:
To service your cars.

Ian:
Yeah, very few of them now do. They're sort of separated, serving fuel and food and drinks from servicing cars.

Pete:
It's a bit of a rare one, right. There's there's I think there's one in Leopold near us, where on the side of the road you will see there's kind of like there'll be a car wash and a service station at the back and then the petrol station.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
I imagine that it was originally all one, all one service station. And then the businesses have been divided. And then they built a, you know, car wash next to it.

Ian:
Yeah.

Pete:
Do you use servo?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
Really?

Ian:
No.

Pete:
Far out. I would have thought you'd use this. I use it servo. I'm just going to the servo.

Ian:
Yeah. Again, it's as we spoke about in the previous episode. Go and listen to that. If you're the location is implied by the activity. So if I'm going to get fuel, I don't need to say where because that's obvious.

Pete:
He doesn't like repeating himself. He doesn't like redundancy. Like this is superfluous. I need to be efficient.

Ian:
And it's not even an active thing. I don't actively decide. I don't need to say that. It's just I'm going to fill up the fuel.

Pete:
So how would you use this in a sentence?

Ian:
I'm going down the servo to grab a pie and fill up.

Pete:
Yep. Fill up. And there you go. You fill up what.

Ian:
Yeah, me with the pie!

Pete:
Yeah. And the car with the fuel. All right. I guess that's it for today's episode. Don't forget to go check out the first episode where we covered another ten slang terms and expressions. A lot of those were fun. Let us know in the comments if you've heard any of these before, and if you have any others that you'd like us to cover in the future. And also, shameless plug, go check out the 1001 Aussie Slang words and expressions ebook at www.slangebook.com. The link will be in the description and we'll catch you next time.

Ian:
Bye!

Pete:
All right, that's it for today. If you found this one helpful, leaving a quick review really does help other learners find the podcast. And if you know someone who's learning Aussie English, feel free to share this episode with them too, mate. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next one.

Pete:
You say tooroo? Or hooroo?

Ian:
Hooroo?

Pete:
Yeah. Which- I think both?

Ian:
Hooroo. Both.

Pete:
Yeah. Yeah. I got told off by someone the other day.

Ian:
Really?

Pete:
It's not tooroo. It's hooroo.

Ian:
To which the answer is. Fuck off, mate.

Pete:
Yeah. That's.

Ian:
Tooroo!

Pete:
Yeah. That's it. Off I chuff!