Fair dinkum Aussie-isms

I'll tell you something funny - well i think its funny, and nice too.

I was at uni yesterday - taking international business this semester - and we had a guest speaker, Neville Greenbank. Guest speakers are rare and novel at uni, and this was one rare dude. Nev (what a cool name) is an older man now, maybe 70-odd, and a farmer from Snake Valley, west of Ballarat. He is now a very successful entrepreneur in the midwest of USA, operating a mobile wheat cleaning business that controls 98% of the market. Smart dude too. Nev had his lovely wife with him, all set up in a nice dress and her hair in a ribbon, quite a 50's scene.

So in comes Nev to talk to the class of 17 students. About half men half women, and three of us are Australian. The rest of the class are Indians, Chinese and one Mexican. The teacher is also Chinese.

When you are around international students a fair bit, as i am, you start to notice how you change the way you speak to be clearer and that you take less shortcuts with language, and use less slang. It may not be necessary but it happens automatically so you are sure people are following what you say.

Someone forgot to tell Nev about this little rule. Wow. When you are tuned in to it, as I was then, I was staggered how much of what he said was slang or a really Australian way of saying things. Almost every sentence, phrase, answer that he gave was some sort of slang. He wasn't hamming it up for the crowd, he simply spoke that way all the time and figured we would all get it. We might have, but gee it was funny. Not only was I surprised, I was proud. We really do have our own way of saying things, and so self-deprecating.

ps. on language - I went to NZ a few years back and some of the locals I met thought I was from Sydney. I was surprised and quizzed them on this. They said it was my accent - apparently I didn't sound like a Melbournian.

pps. when I moved from Wangaratta to Ballarat I started work in an office. There was a friendly guy over the partition. He smiled a lot and always said something, but he had such a thick accent that I could never grasp what it was he said, so I just mumbled hi back. Keen to break the ice and have a good chat, I asked my boss who the Irish guy was: he shrugged and had no idea who I was talking about. "Him", I said, pointing at the man. "Irish! Ha ha no, that's Dan. He's a Ballarat boy, born and bred."