AE 1428 - 10 Australian Slang Terms & Expressions - Does Dad Know It? Ep 1

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

G'day you mob! Welcome to Aussie English. I'm your host Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken down under. So whether you want to sound like a fair income Aussie, or you just want to understand what the flippin' L we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go. G'day guys, Pete here from Aussie English. Welcome to the first episode of Does Dad Know It? Um, this is going to be a series where I test my dad on Australian slang to see whether he actually knows it, what it means, whether he'd use it, and if it's something that Australians actually say. If you want to learn over 1,001 Australian slang words and expressions, be sure to grab my ebook, Aussie slang dictionary, at slangebook.com. So just go to www.slangebook.com. Alright. Dad. So I've got ten words and expressions for you to see what you reckon. Might as well just get into it, huh? Um Drongo.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Um it is a dopey, stupid person.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

So can you get it?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Also a speech a couple of species of birds.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

So drongo, how would you spell drongo? D-R-O-N-G-O. D-R-O-N-G-O. So how would you use this in a sentence? Yeah, you're bloody drongo. When would you use it? When would you when would you call someone a drongo?

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Somebody's done something stupid. Um I don't know. Tripped over in the street. You're bloody drongo. What are you doing? Is this is this also a term. You can't say drongo. Yeah, you have to kind of work. You have to kind of overdo it a bit. Sorry, you've got to take a drink here.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, go for it. So would you is this the kind of thing that you would use to sort of soften an insult a bit too?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

I feel like rather than calling somebody an idiot, idiot has a um a literal meaning as well as an implied meaning, whereas drongo is sort of it's like you're taking the piss as well as insulting them. Yeah. Taking a piss, that's another one you can throw on the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, well you've just you're getting through my content, Dad. Just take it easy. Alright, so drongo, a fool or idiot. Don't be a drongo. My oath. So my oath, would you use this today? No. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

When would you use it? Um i it's either means, well, depending on the intonation in your voice, if you said my oath, it means you are um confirming that something is true. Yep. If you go, my oath, you go, you're asking, is something true?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

So it's it's an interesting one, right? It's a bit outdated now. I think we would probably say bloody oath. Yeah, or the obvious one. Fucking oath. Fucking oath. You could swear here. It's a safe space for swearing, Dad. You know, it's all part of education. So you would use this as absolutely, that's definitely true. Oh yeah, my oath. My oath. But it's outdated. You would probably say, Oh yeah, bloody oath. Ken oath. Ken Oath, which is short for fucking oath. Yeah, you'll see you'll actually see that in some ads, right? You'll see them writing Ken as in K-E-N and then Oath, Ken Oath, right? Ken Oath, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

So how would you when would you use this? Uh well, it's confirming something.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Somebody bloody series getting activated by my dad on the phone. I know. It said, you know what it said? It said I don't understand. I don't understand. It's because we're using Aussie Slang series.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Exactly. Yeah. Speak Australian series.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Speaking in Portuguese, sorry, my phone's in Portuguese.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Uh so where were we? Well, I would use my oath. You'd say you so somebody asked me, um, did that really happen? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My oath, mate.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

All right. My oath. Number three. What about bin chicken? Bin chicken? Oh, that's that's a non-Victorian thing, uh, even though we have white ibis in Victoria.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Really?

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Oh, yeah, as an insult for Queen's.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

No, no, no, no, no, no. Bin chickens, the Ibis bird that dig through your bins, right? Yeah. But you don't do it in Victoria. No, they do. They do. They do it in Hillsville Sanctuary. Oh, yeah. That's where they originated. Oh, really? That's where, because I was talking on a previous podcast, I was talking to, I think it might have been the bird guy. What was his name again? The Bird Guy. Who wrote the book and Sean Dooley? Sean Dooley. I think it was him telling me that bin chickens originated at Hillsville Sanctuary because they had a whole bunch of them and they learnt that behaviour, and then they flew off and dispersed throughout the world.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

And taught everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

And then they became much more common and abundant with that behaviour up in um Queensland and and uh Sydney and New South Wales. So a bin chicken, what is it? It's an ibis, a bird.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Why is it called a bin chicken? Because they tend to rob rubbish bins in the streets, particularly around shopping centres and cafes.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

And they're just kind of ugly, weird looking bird birds, right? Like so the the insult kind of fits. Yeah. They're a bit they're a bit gross. Okay. So you would use bin chicken today.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I would.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

No, I don't know how many other people would.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

I mean you would probably say, oh look, there's an ibis, and then if it was behaving that way, bin chicken. Bin chicken. All right. Number four, chuck a sicky. Chuck a sicky is. What's a sicky and where are you chucking it?

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Where are you chucking it? Yes. A sicky is a um a sick day off work. Mm-hmm. Um, and to chuck one is to take one. I'm not sure how the chuck being a slang term for throw. Yes. How to throw a sick leave day actually makes sense. But I guess it's like chuck a wobbly, chuck a tantrum.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

It's that kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah, well, throw a tantrum is one. To like do the thing, right? In that sense. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Chuck a tantrum, chuck a tanty. There's another one for you guys, chuck a tantrum. Chuck a tantrum. Lose your nana. Get really upset. Yeah, chuck a zicki. Would you say chuck a sicky? Yes. Yep. When have you chucked a sicky down? I have never chucked a sicky.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

At least. And it's usually chucking chucking a sicky is done when you are not actually sick. If you take a sick day off when you are sick, it's not considered to be chucking a sicky.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, it's right.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

It is more you chuck a sicky on the golf course. Well yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Wow, yeah. So the definition here is take a day off work pretending to be sick to be sick. Yeah. He chucked a sicky so he could go fishing. Alright, we're halfway through. Number five, bottolo. You'd never use this bottle dad.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Well, there's You've never been to a bottle, have you? No, there's two versions of bottle O. Uh when I was a kid, the Bottolo was the guy who used to come and collect um recyclable bottles from your house. Okay. Um, and then it became slang for the bottle shop, which is um usually associated with a hotel where you actually go and buy takeaway alcohol. Yeah. Usually in bottles. Funnily enough, it's never called a canoe. Yeah, that'd be like a lot of people buying cans.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

That'd be very weird, right? Bottle O, so a bottle is a liquor store. Yeah. Um what when would you use this term?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Um I'm just heading down the bottle to grab a six pack.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

And you'd use this frequently?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

No.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Not anymore?

SPEAKER_02 6:56

I wouldn't use it. Would you typically say that? I used the shop's name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Like BWS or Dan Murphy's or Yeah, whatever, probably.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Um, or you don't need to specify the location if you're already specified the activity. Yeah. If I'm going to buy beer, I'd just say I'm going to buy beer because it's implied from the point of the bottle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I'm going to go for a a swim at the pool.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

I guess you could go swim in other places, but so the yeah, I probably wouldn't use bottle o mostly because I grew up using it in its first version. I definitely grew up using this as the people collecting bottles from your house when you were a kid. Not at all. When did that stop? Sixties? Sixties probably. Yeah. Funnily enough, when we stopped recycling bottles and then we brought it back in again in the nineties. Alright, number six, beauty bottler. Beauty bottler. Well, that's a double up. Means the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

What's a beauty bottler?

SPEAKER_02 7:49

It means a good thing. I have never heard this one in conversation.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Beauty gets used all the time. Beauty does, but beauty bottler.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Bottler is an old one, probably came from the 30s and 40s, if not before.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah. I imagine the idea is you're bottling something beautiful. Put that beautiful thing in a bottle and sell it. Yeah. Give it a bottle. Bottle that one. Bottle that one. Keep it. Store it for later. Exactly. So beauty bottle, a bottler. How would you use this in a sentence?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Um, I wouldn't use the two together, but it would be that um you know somebody brings you around a present and you go, oh, beauty, bottler.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, I don't think I would use it. That new cafe is a real beauty bottler. I think the average Australian now with that one would be like what?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, botler. Bottler's just too old.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yep. But that's I've included these in the dictionary just so that if you guys ever do come across them, whether reading or hearing them from, say, really old people. Yeah, really old. Really old. That's it. People in their 150s, you'll know what it means. Muck around. Muck around. Number six. Mess around. Six seven. Fool around. Six. Six, seven, six. Six seven. I think we're up to seven. We're up to a number greater than five. My kids are gonna be listening to this being like, oh, six, seven. All right. What are we doing? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Muck around. Muck around means to mess around, to fool about. To waste time. Behave playfully, right? Yes. Do you use this? Muck around. Yeah. Yeah. Usually when I'm instructing grandchildren. Castigating. Stop mucking around.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yelling at them. Yeah. And that's the the polite version, right? Yes, exactly. You just only need to change one letter. That's it. Stop fucking around. You probably wouldn't say that. Not to the grandchildren. No. And you can say piss farting around. Piss farting around. Yeah, piss farting.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I learned that from you. I know. Piss farting was one in my child from my childhood. Sorry, I'm not taking another drink. Yeah, that was I remember hearing this. Became a um a very common thing for piss farting around, was just mucking about.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

As in you're like literally wasting time urinating and farting.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Well, not literally, but metaphorically.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

The picture that it paints is not pretty. So how how would you use this in a sentence to muck around? Stop mucking around. So it's usually that negative, like don't muck around. No, you're not gonna sit down. I'm gonna go and muck around. Well, I guess you could say there were a few kids at the store mucking around in a parking lot or something. Yeah. All right. Number eight, chuff off. Chuff off means to leave. Do you is this one you tell someone to do, or it's what you say you are doing when you chuff off?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Uh you hear both, you know. I'm gonna chuf off. You should chuf off, mate. No, no, not uh that's usually piss off. Yeah, not like get out of here. No, it's I'm going to leave. I'm gonna chuf off. And I've always thought, maybe it isn't, I've always thought it came from getting on a steam train and heading off with a chuf-chuff-chuf. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that that is true or not. It's funny how often that happens with I've noticed myself doing that with slang terms or expressions where I'm like, I have an idea in my mind of where this originated, and then you look it up and it's like nothing like it. Oh no. You your brain has come up with an explanation, and then it turns out, nah, that's garbage. Yeah. Alright, so how would you use this in a sentence? When would you say chuff off? Yeah, all right, I've had enough, Pete. I'm gonna chuff off. See you later. Yeah, and it's leave. It's got kind of like quickly, right? Like I'm just gonna quickly leave. Like, sorry guys.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I'm gonna I'm not I'm about to think about leaving.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

It's I'm out of here. You're not dawdling, you're not delaying getting out. All right, number nine, bang on. Bang on means exactly. Mm-hmm. Exactly right. Perfectly accurate. Yes. Your answer was bang on. Bang on. Is that something you use?

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Um possibly, but I don't I can't remember using it last, but I'm not saying I'd haven't used it.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

It's one of those weird ones, right, where you know you hear this regularly. Yeah, but you don't use it yourself. There's a few of those that come up every now and then where you're like, that's totally an expression I hear regularly. And you know what it means, and it fits the concept. But it's not in my active vocab that I just whip out all the time, right? Bang on. So how would you use it in a sentence? If something's bang on? It's exactly right. Yeah. So our mate, his answer was bang on. Bang on. Yeah. All right. And number 10 here. Do I get a little drum roll? Hang on.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

I two fingers. I I won't do it on the microphone. Um, nah, yeah. Nah uh, nah yeah, it's not that's not even an expression. It's well, it's not slang, it's an expression, but it's a meaningless expression. And it and it has a um it's equivalent, yeah nah. Um well, they're opposites, aren't they? They are, yeah, but they're they're opposites but exactly the same.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Go with the last word that's said. Exactly right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

And funnily enough, it became I first heard it probably 20 years ago with Australian footballers saying it, yeah. So yeah, I'm interviewing an Australian footballer, hypothetically, and say, Well, you know, are you gonna be back this week for um you know for the game? Yeah, nah. Yeah, or nah, yeah. I'm and and I'm sure it came from you give a response you're already agreeing or disagreeing with someone. But you're giving a response that is wasting time before you actually think of the real answer. Yeah, and then so you go, yeah. It's a placeholder for you talking. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

While you're considering back nah, yeah. But that's pretty much how I use it. Like if someone said, um Pete, do you want to come over for some seafood? And I'd probably be like, what seafood? Because there's like there's seafood, no, that I won't come over for. And there's so if I was like, nah, and they said it's fish, I'd be like, Yeah, I'll come over. It's just like I'm changing my opinion halfway mid-sentence.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Yeah, no, it's just a um the the universal response when the answer could be yes or no, but that that will become obvious in the following conversation.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, it's a yeah, or nah, yeah, yeah. It's an interesting one, but yeah, nah. I I think I catch myself saying, yeah, nah, more than nah, yeah. It's like if I I'm saying like yes, I understand what you're saying. It's almost like I'm except I'm showing acceptance of what I'm saying. But I disagree. Exactly. Like, ah, gosh, what is it? Pete, do you think that Geelong is gonna win the AFL you know premiership this year? I might be like, yeah, nah, I don't reckon they will. Like, yeah, I understand that you're asking this, and yeah, mate. Oh, Matt, nah, nah, nah, nah. The more I think about it, nah. All right, well, that's the ten of them, Dad. So you reckon that that was a pretty good list? Bit of education in there? Bit of fun. Bit of fun, bit of fun, yeah. Bang on. Bang on.

unknown 14:12

All right.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Can I all right? Well, thanks for hanging out, guys. Um, let us know in the comments or a message what slang term you'd like him to tackle next if you've got a need to run past dad. And don't forget to grab the full Aussie slang dictionary at slangebook.com. Okay, see you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

All right, that's it for today. If you found this one helpful, leaving a quick review really does help other learners find the podcast. And if you know someone who's learning Aussie English, feel free to share this episode with them too, mate. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next one.