'No worries': this Australian slang was popularised within the Eighties by the vastly standard comedy movie, Crocodile Dundee. Allstar Image Library Ltd/Alamy Inventory Picture
An annual listing of “banished phrases” compiled by Lake Superior State College in Michigan has brought about a stir by together with the distinctively Australian phrase “no worries”. Dislike of this idiom seems to be primarily based on the misunderstanding that it’s an instruction to not fear. “If I’m not frightened, I don’t need anybody telling me to not fear”, complained one one that nominated the phrase for boycotting, including: “If I’m upset, I need to talk about being upset.”
Originating in Australian English within the Nineteen Sixties, the phrase is in actual fact used to imply “all proper” or “fantastic”, or to acknowledge thanks. Its worldwide unfold was inspired by the success of the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee and the long-running TV collection Neighbours. Since linguistic misunderstandings of this sort are an inevitable characteristic of a language that’s unfold throughout the globe, here’s a useful information to some potential areas of confusion.
1. Caught with yours pants down
Being caught together with your pants down, that’s, being taken off guard in an embarrassing scenario, carries completely different levels of humiliation relying on which aspect of the Atlantic you’re on on the time. That’s as a result of within the US pants seek advice from what the Brits name trousers, whereas in Britain it refers to what folks put on underneath their trousers.
In Scotland it’s attainable to be caught trousered together with your pants down, since “trousered” is a time period for being drunk. Its latest inclusion within the Oxford English Dictionary is credited to its being the popular time period of comic Billy Connolly. In lots of components of the UK, the verb “to trouser” may also be synonymous with “to pocket”, often money.
2. Budgie smugglers
This isn’t a time period for individuals who try to cross by customs with small tropical birds secreted about their individual, however slightly an Australian phrase for a pair of close-fitting swimming trunks. Today they’re typically related to former prime minister Tony Abbott, who has a penchant for being photographed thus attired.
One other merchandise of clothes generally sported on the Australian seaside is thongs. This not the skimpy undergarment, nonetheless, however an alternate identify for flip-flops.
3. Piss on somebody’s chips
As you might know, what the British name “chips” are referred to as French fries within the US – regardless of George W. Bush’s makes an attempt to vary this to “freedom fries” when the French wouldn’t be a part of the coalition of the prepared to invade Iraq in 2003. People use the time period chips to seek advice from crisps, as do Australians.
Depart my chips alone.
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Whichever fried potato snack you’re having fun with, having somebody urinate on them will surely spoil the deal with. However this idiom extra possible refers to wooden chips utilized in kindling, and so signifies spoiling somebody’s plans or taking away their enjoyment of one thing. It has an analogous drive to the expression piss on somebody’s bonfire, which is meant to convey an equal dampening impact, albeit one that’s much less more likely to put the fireplace out totally.
4. Play piece
This isn’t an instruction to a baby in a music lesson to play a bit of music, however slightly the Scottish time period for a snack taken to high school to eat at break time. It derives from the Scottish use of “piece” to imply sandwich – though it may seek advice from any type of gentle chunk, and never essentially a wholesome one.
5. Toss your cookies
Most of us are aware of the American use of “cookie” to seek advice from what in England is named a biscuit. However to toss your cookies isn’t an invite to share baked treats, however an idiom which means “be sick” – recognized in Australia as “go for the massive spit”.
6. Heat your ginger
If somebody in Glasgow provides you a ginger you would possibly properly count on a can of ginger beer or maybe even the brilliant orange Scottish favorite Irn Bru. However within the west of Scotland, “ginger” is in actual fact a generic time period for any flavour of fizzy drink.
Given this, you is perhaps forgiven for assuming that a proposal to heat your ginger means to take the chilliness off a can of Coke. However this phrase really attracts on a unique Scottish use of “ginger” to imply bottom, and so means: “offer you a beating”.
7. Do the messages
This isn’t an invite to change into a undercover agent or to compensate for your electronic mail, however as a substitute a Scottish phrase which means “do the procuring”. Within the US this includes a visit to the grocery retailer, the equal of a British nook store; in Australia and New Zealand these are referred to as milk bars or combined companies, whereas in South Africa they’re termed cafés or tea rooms. To make issues extra complicated, in Indian English a café or restaurant is called a “lodge”. In the meantime Australians use the phrase “lodge” to imply the pub.
8. Eat parrot head
This expression – which comes within the even odder variant “eat parrot backside” – is a Caribbean phrase referring to somebody who’s excessively talkative. Somebody vulnerable to incessant chat in Scotland is called a “blether”, from an Previous Norse phrase which means “speak nonsense”.
This isn’t actually what ‘Eat parrot head’ means.
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In Nigerian English, the phrase gist, which means “essence” or “predominant half”, has been prolonged to seek advice from idle chat and gossip, whereas Irish English makes use of “pant”. Though this will contain tales of individuals caught with their pants down, the phrase itself has nothing to do with underpants or trousers – it originates from a shortening of pantomime.
9. Visitors robotic
This isn’t the newest improvement in synthetic intelligence however the South African time period for a site visitors gentle, or what People name a cease gentle. The phrase robotic is of Czech origin, from robota, which means “compelled labour”. It was coined by Karel Čapek within the 1920 play R.U.R.: Rossum’s Common Robots to seek advice from mass-produced staff constructed from artificially synthesised materials.
10. Prepone a gathering
The verb “prepone” is utilized in Indian English to imply deliver one thing ahead in time. As such it provides a useful reverse to postpone. And if suspending till tomorrow isn’t far sufficient away, in Nigerian English it’s attainable to place one thing off till “subsequent tomorrow”.
This phrase refers back to the day after tomorrow, the equal of the Sixteenth-century “overmorrow” (from German übermorgen), whose demise has left a niche in different types of English.
Simon Horobin doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.
