Saturday, March 03, 2007

"We can hear you guys miles away..."

So after noting the strong Scottish accents of a couple guys we were talking to at a bar, I asked an Aussie friend if the American accent seemed really strong to Australians. Her response: "Oh yea, we can hear you guys miles away..." Good to know. (and interesting that they use the phrase "miles away" when they work in kilometers)
A couple of notes about Australian-speak: They like words to end with an "ie" or "y" sound. My college, St. Thomas More, is Tommy More. The neighboring one is Georgie. Other examples are sunnies (sunglasses) and mossies (mosquitos), as well as the famous barbies (BBQs) I also have noticed that a lot of Australians add an "r" sound to the end of words ending in vowels. So at least to my ears it sounds more like "Australiar" (Australia), "Americer" (America), "idear" (idea), "pander" (panda), etc.
One more interesting thing-on the first day of one of my classes, one of my profs (as he was going over the course outline, etc) noted that he had taught in both Australia and the USA, (I think he's German) and he asked, "Do you know what the difference is between American and Australian students?" I was thinking "Uh-oh, something bad is coming..." but what he said actually complemented American students. He said (loosely quoted) "American students are loud and outspoken. They challenge the profesor. Australian students are quiet and passive..." (He was trying to encourage us to participate in the lectures.) An interesting generalization. I'll have to see if my classroom experiences support it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Joe said...

There are some Briticisms that I really think should be introduced to the States: "that's rubbish" instead of "that sucks," and "ace!" instead of "great!" or "awesome!"

3/07/2007 10:51 PM  

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