So you might not have known, but today Australia’s national dictionary has just been updated for the first time since 1988. It’s basically a book about Australian mannerisms, the words and phrases we use that sound like utter garbage to other countries.
Question is — what’s your favourite Aussie slang?
Given the increased frequency of words like “flogged”, “bugger” and other country-esque phrases over the last year, it’s difficult to argue against the notion that I have something of a bogan streak in me. Just the other day a colleague was laughing at how I seem to call everyone “old mate”, which is more or less code for “that person whose name I can’t remember right now”.
Even when I can actually remember their name, but it’s a natural reflex and OK shut up I’m a bogan go away.
But we all have a little straya streak from time to time. And Australia has some fantastic phrases perfect for any situation.
What’s yours?
Comments
72 responses to “Off Topic: Aussie Slang”
DILLIGAF, kaan kaant, and fuck me sideways would likely be my most common;y used 😉
I appreciate kaan kaant just for the Frenzal Rhomb song of the same name, if nothing else hah
😀 You Sir, are a champion!
Ahh the rhomb 😀
awesome aussie band
I’d never come across DILLIGAF before (well, as an acronym anyway) and then just this afternoon I was driving behind a 4WD that had it on the rear windshield as a sticker.
God damn universe.
First time I heard it was in a Kevin Bloody Wilson song 🙂
Huh, I feel like I haven’t heard “flogged” in forever. And the “buggers” have been pretty few and far between too. And am actually struggling to think of any real Australianisms I commonly use at all. I mean there was that time back in year 8 or so when I couldn’t stop using the word “stooge”, thanks to watching too much Pizza and having it just latch onto my mind completely. That was weird.
Bugger that.
Woop Woop, because tons of remote places in Australia, always easier to bunch them up all as one. efficient 😉
Bloody woop woop, good term *nods*
My bogan streak is more a rich ore seam running through my core. I’ll constantly use colloquialisms, metaphors and similes that leave others tilting their head to the side.
Flat out like a lizard drinking
Off like a startled gazelle/fish milkshake/sock/startled gazelle
Busier than a one armed brick layer in Baghdad (special occasions only)
All over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast/shit
Snag short of a barbie
Old mate
Bugger me
Snags
Sangas
Arvo
Barbie
Liberal use of the c word in the right context (have a good story around Americans misusing that) etc etc.
Don’t feel Bogan @alexwalker, you’re in good company mate 😉 Can’t all be born with a silver spoon up our arse.
Have an American who I work with, he was confused why we don’t say Morno, as in a greeting in the Morning.
So now morno is now a thing at my work.
Seppos ruin everything….
You’re mad as a cut snake mate!
Yeah, nah
BEST.
Yeah, nah 😉
nah, yeah ???
Had to explain that to a friend of mine visiting from the UK. Yeahnah is no, nahyeah is yes… She’s baffled.
Also we hadn’t spoken in a couple of decades so my Aussie accent freaked her out.
100% my most-used piece of Aussie slang.
This is pretty damn common in WA
I’m very very happy that “doing a Bradbury” has made it into the Australian dictionary. It’s probably my favourite moment in Olympic history ever.
I am so glad someone mentioned this. Best Olympic moment ever!
Fuck me dead.
Snu snu!
Colder than a witches tit
Face like a bucket of smashed crabs
Tighter than a fishes arsehole
Knee high to a grasshopper
On the topic of slang the word sprog in the uk means child while in Aus it is semen. An English family member found this out recently from the reaction of other adults when calling a bunch of kids “my little sprogs”. She’s a kindergarten teacher.
haha never heard those before, (with the exception of the grasshopper) but slight variants of
“Tight as a nuns cunt” and “Face like a half eaten meat pie”
Cold as a nuns nasty is one I’ve heard, and describing someone as having a ‘face like the north end of a south bound camel’.
Alt. “Face like a bag of arseholes”
Alt. Face like a dropped pie.
Nah, I’ve always heard ‘sprog’ or ‘sproglets’ used to refer to children, since the 80s at least.
Yeah never heard Sprog used for kids.
I think they call the baby in the original Mad Max sprog…. weird.
Describing something as Grouse.
I’m UK enough to remember a Grouse being an animal.
I like that the nickname for a redhead is “blue” or “bluey”.
As a red head, I got called ‘biscuits’ in school more than bluey or blue.
I got “Ginger Meggs” or just “Meggs” a fair amount from older people.
I don’t know if this is Strayan or English but I often say “cheers” instead of “thanks”. Mostly when im buying something or getting served.
I have so much of a bogan streak in me its more like a GT racing stripe on a XY Falcon !!!
but im no match for my mate who I swear is a mind twin of the Honey Badger (if you don’t know who he is look it up), he comes out with some crackers that’s for sure.
dryer than a nuns nasty,
flat out like a lizard drinking,
goin’ off like a cut snake
on it like a seagull on a chip
gunna be like a midget at a urinal and stay on my toes.
these are just some of his favourites.
also how Aussie is the Honey Badger…………legend that guy.
Pickus uppa packa ciggies from the servo on the way home from the pokies willya, ya gunt.
Mate I’ll get Shazza and Dazza to do it when they bring the ute back from their Macca’s. Hope they didn’t get too pissed at the rissole, there was an Acca Dacca cover band tonight.
Fuck ay, I reckon that’d be alright. Is Bruce gonna be there with ‘is new Sheila, whatsername?
fark
I still use G’day. How we got this many comments through without it being said is unAustralian.
UnAustralian is a term that can fuck right off, though.
I’ve had several jobs where I’d have to make regular phone calls to people in North Queensland.
My Strayan knob goes to eleven and while I tone it back down to about a six in daily life, it comes so naturally that I couldn’t tell you lot the difference.
We don’t need to hear about your Strayan knob.
But it goes to eleven!
Couldn’t you just make 10 more Aussie?
…but it’s one Aussier…
Well I’m not here to fuck spiders.
Farkoff.
Getfarkedkarnt.
Not here to fuck spiders is just the best. Absolute head tilter to people who’ve never heard it though!
PG Version: not here to pet wombats.
I love Aussie slang. Particularly when you can still surprise people.
My best friend of twelve years doesn’t get Australian sayings and I managed to floor them the other day, asking for a small amount.
I said use a poofteenth. They had no idea what I was on about, just said to me. That after twelve years they are still surprised I can use slang they don’t get
Piff is the best.
“Just fuckin’ piff it”
or
“He piffed it at my fuckin’ head!”
The phrase that I was recently surprised by was the every day “Tuesday week”.
I don’t know if it’s entirely Australian, but it seems that most of the world has no idea what that means. I casually asked a non-Aussie colleague to deliver something to me by “Tuesday week” and he busted a gut to get it to me in 4 days, rather than the week-and-a-half that I was expecting.
“A week from Tuesday” is both too many bloody words and also too distinct. Tuesday week is open to interpretation, gives you a buffer.
Aussie slang?? Yeah nah, s’alright aye.
I especially like “from asshole to breakfast time” to mean all over the place, e.g. an infant eating could be said to have food from asshole to breakfast time.
I also like saying “Face like a bag of assholes” and “Dry as a dead dingo’s dick”.
A close family friend used to use heaps of Australianisms, it was the best. Some favourites:
Off like a bride’s nightie.
Why buy a dog and bark yourself?
Off like a bucket of prawns in the hot sun.
Also my dad would often say when something fit well it was like ‘a bum in a bucket’ which I don’t really hear anywhere.
I find one of the funniest i hear is my roommates comparing the price of certain things to trips to bali in conversations, gets me every time
Some of these are about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike, or a one legged man at an arse kicking party.
Munted
My favourites are the ones you don’t even know are australian slang that no body else knows.
When you are talking to somebody overseas and just standard conversation and they suddenly have no idea what you are talking about as certain words/phrases
This happens with my wife a bit as I drop some old british reference in. I’m pretty sure she thinks I make some of them up to mess with her brain.
I don’t make up as many as she thinks. 🙂
Bet that gets you in a bit of Barney.
Bung a uwee, an gunnit!
Described as doing a u turn, then accelerating.
As useful as a cunt full of cold water
Built like a brick shithouse
Couldn’t organise a pissup in a brewery. Always loved that one.
“She’ll be alright”. As a foreigner, for some reason, it amuses me immensely.
But read quickly, and drop some of the letters completely. “Nah, shibbyrite”
Chuck a U-ey
Always been a fan of “Garn” (dimunitive form of “Garngetfucked”). I’ll call you “mate” (whether you’re a bloke or a sheila) if I know ya, unless you’re a client or my boss (or I don’t like you – then you’ll get not only your actual name, but the ‘formal’ version of your name e.g. if you’re a Mike I’ll call you Michael).
I like having a coldie while I fire up the barbie for a coupla snags, although I’m more likely to ask the missus for a shag afterwards than me sheila for a root. Although being my missus I’ll she’s more likely to chuck a wobbly at the very suggestion 🙂