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Hi - just wondering if this thread might be quite fun - what are people's favourite Aussie phrases?
I noticed when visiting that Australia has a rich variety of phrases. when I was given a delicious plate of food by the lady I stayed with - and she said: "There you go, knock yourself out!" I had to smile - it sounded so amusing. I also like "She'll be right!" and he's got tickets on himself!" so which other phrases do people like?
'Flat out like a lizard drinking', since it's so stereotypical but it would be corny to say it IRL lol.
Alf Stewart's 'ya flamin' galah!'
The other day, I called someone on another thread a drongo. Though many people think that this slang word for "idiot" came about because of the bird, it actually came about as because of a maiden racehorse called Drongo who ran in the 1920s.
So what is the true story? There was an Australian racehorse called Drongo during the early 1920s. It seems likely that he was named after the bird called the 'drongo'. He wasn't a an absolute no-hoper of a racehorse: he ran second in a VRC Derby and St Leger, third in the AJC St Leger, and fifth in the 1924 Sydney Cup. He often came very close to winning major races, but in 37 starts he never won a race. In 1924 a writer in the Melbourne Argus comments: 'Drongo is sure to be a very hard horse to beat. He is improving with every run'. But he never did win.
Soon after the horse's retirement it seems that racegoers started to apply the term to horses that were having similarly unlucky careers. Soon after the term became more negative, and was applied also to people who were not so much 'unlucky' as 'hopeless cases', 'no-hopers', and thereafter 'fools'. In the 1940s it was applied to recruits in the Royal Australian Air Force. It has become part of general Australian slang.
haahhaa, nobody really says "you flaming galah!" or "stone the crows" in Australia right? they're just alfisms!
susankate, thanks for that link - it was very interesting reading about the origins of phrases.
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Originally Posted by clovervale
haahhaa, nobody really says "you flaming galah!" or "stone the crows" in Australia right? they're just alfisms!
susankate, thanks for that link - it was very interesting reading about the origins of phrases.
Well Alf didn't invent them, but they came to be associated with him. Barry MacKenzie is also known for saying 'stone the crows.'
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