As an outsider, Kiwi's and Ozzies sound pretty much identical. Now we've been here for a while, we are beginning to pick up on the subtleties that make them different. To the natives the differences are blindingly obvious, to the point where a member of one nation will sometimes have to fight off tears of laughter listening to the accent of the other. Here is a field guide to the song of the Kiwi.
Pronunciation - Somewhere along the line, the Kiwi's have got mixed up with which vowel is which.
- 'i' becomes 'uh'. The classic way to identify a Kiwi is to get them to say 'Fish and chips'. If it comes out 'Fush and Chups' ... bullseye!
- 'e' becomes 'i'. The 'e' sound, as in 'ten', becomes 'i', as in 'tin'. Central Surf surf shop is currently offering 'Tin persint off in the sintral surf sale'.
- Rolled 'r's, just with a single roll, like Shaun Connery would.
Words - Heres a few choice words and phrases.
- Choice - Exceptionally good. 'Thats choice bro'
- Bro - as 'mate' in the UK. Females can also be, and often are, bro's.
- Sweet as - Perfect, marvelous, jolly good. The '.. as' suffix is often used, 'that's funny as.' or 'it was hard as, getting up that hill'. The only time anything seems to follow 'as' is with the much used 'good as gold'.
- Eh? - Perpetually added to the end of sentances. 'Reckon it was hard as getting up that hill eh?'
- Togs - Swimming kit.
- Jandals - Flip-flops, 'thongs' in Aussie.
- Pants - As in the US, are trousers. Pants are called undies. The potential for embarrasing mix ups with thongs, undies and pants are almost endless.
- Thanks Driver - Always say this when getting off the bus.
- Bach - 'Bachelor pad', traditionally little more than a shed out in the country somewhere. Seem to have been used in the same way as sheds in the UK, i.e. as a refuge from 'her indoors', except for the whole weekend, so with a bed, cooker, heater etc. Now more likely to be a million dollar home somewhere in the Marlborough Sounds with boat only access.
- Manchester - for some bizzarre reason, bedding, towels, etc is collectively known as 'manchester'.
- Rudeness - The 'rude word' threshhold seems to be considerably higher than in the UK. There are anti litter campaign's requesting that you 'Don't be a tosser', and milder beepable words feature heavily on the TV. Parliament / polititians offer up regular ammusement as arguments deteriorate into f'ing and blinding contests. The news recently featured footage of one MP 'giving the bird' to another out of sight of the speaker.
- Hoon - Boy racer
- Tramping - Walking / hiking.
2 comments:
The Australians also refer to bedding etc as Manchester. I'd been told it was because a lot of it used to come from Manchester but that sounds suspicious.
I seem to recall that parliamentary debate in Australia is also slightly more robust than in the UK.
However, the most important question is do kiwis have the same irresistable urge as Australians to shorten words and then add an 'o' on to the end? e.g. bottle shop becomes bottlo and registration plate becomes rego.
This is my favourite bit of parliamentary news since we've been here.
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