Thursday, February 8, 2007

Australian English!


The Australian culture is a lay back one. Today one of the leaders of the Broken Bay Institute where I was doing some studying described the "culture of leisure" that pervades his country. It is very often manifested in the commitment to sports. Seems like every where I go there are people playing Cricket, football, soccer, etc. People are certainly very friendly and welcoming where ever I go. They always seem to have time to give directions and answer questions. Nice!

More on “Australian English”:

They say:
sorry when we would say “Excuse me”
Motorway when we would say "expressway"
Ring me when we would say "call or phone me"

Bonnet when we would say "hood of the car"
Barbie when we would say "outdoor grill"
Bookings when we would say "reservations"
Schoolie when we would say "grammar school student"
Unie when we would say "University student "
Pasty when we would definitely say "a piece of pastry! "
Footie when we would say "soccer player"

My favorite saying to day: “I am thrilled to my back teeth!”

On today’s trip to the BBI and diocesan headquarters (called the Curia here), I took a 45 minute commuter train ride from downtown. I’ll retrace my steps on that trip with a video camera soon.

2 comments:

julie said...

When we lived in the northern penninsula of Michigan, a pasty (or pastie) was sort of a meat filled turnover with gravy! Weird.

The single digit temperatures here are very diagnostic- you know every joint where arthritis dwells!

Stay warm!

Anonymous said...

Hey Skip, Greetings from Sangre de Cristo. We have a bunch of Aussies here -- yeah, a friendly lot! Guess what...I have a blog! All this time on my hands and all these people who are more computer literate than me and here I am! Visit it at "Sangre de Cristo Sabbatical 2007"
I don 't have pictures yet, but, since I don't do cameras, I'll get someone here to upload some for me soon. Ray <{{{><