Dub^3 Aussie Style

It's back! This time with a new twist.

For those of you who are new, Dub^3 is short for WWW which is short for the Wonderful Words of Wednesday. This is the segment in which I talk about talking. Since I've recently returned from Australia, I though it'd be appropriate to show you guys some of the Aussie words I picked up.

Even though they speak English in Australia, sometimes I felt like thay were speaking a whole different language. For example, the word, "jumper". When I was younger, my gramma used to make me little dresses that we called jumpers. So when one of my cousins told me to grab a jumper for my mom, I wondered why on earth they thought my mother would need a dress. It turns out that in Australia, a jumper is a hoodie!

The word I heard the most down there was "heaps". They use it in place of "lots" or "a lot". In fact, I don't think I ever heard them say "a lot" or "lots". For example, instead of saying, "I miss you lots!" an Aussie says, "I miss you heaps!". Or instead of asking, "Do you get a lot of snow in Canada?" an Aussie asks, "Do you get heaps of snow in Canada?". I can't tell you how many times I was asked about snow in Canada, all I know is that I got that question heaps of times.

Another word that got me confused was "football". My cousins asked me if I played football and I wasn't sure how to respond; I didn't know if they were talking about the kind of football played in the States or the kind of football the English play that North Americans refer to as soccer. When I asked them which one they meant, they told me they meant neither. When an Aussie uses the word "football" they are talking about rugby. To them, American football is called "grid iron" and English football is called soccer.

I also noticed that the Australians love to make all of their words cuter by shortening them and adding an -ie or -y ending.
"Football" = "footy"
"breakfast" = "brekky"
"barbeque" = "barby"
"television" = "telly"
"lollipop" = "lollie"
"umbrella" = "brelly"
Need I say more? One word that they didn't shorten, however, was "truck", but they still gave it an -ie ending to create "truckie". I would hate to be a truck driver in Australia. Nothing says instant demanification better than admitting that you drive truckies for a living.