Thursday Thoughts # 69
from No Substitute for Murder by Carolyn J Rose
" A small dog gets up everyday with just one thought on his mind," my vet had cautioned. "And that thought is 'I will bend you to my will.'"
Small dogs must think they are cats (*~*)
Today's Thoughts:
I had a thought a while ago, (don't know where it came from, but there it was in my head), that I should try a cream cheese&chopped raisins spread on my bread.
So I bought spreadable cream cheese and a packet of raisins and a new loaf of rye bread, chopped some raisins, mixed them into about a tablespoon of cream cheese and spread it over a slice of bread.
And how was it?
Awful.
Really, really awful.
I'll never listen to those thoughts again.
The cream cheese is pushed to the back of the fridge until I decide what to do with it.
The raisins will get chopped into the oats/dried fruits mix I cook as porridge for breakfast.
**********
An article in our local free weekly paper bemoans the loss of some (most) of our Aussie colloquialisms. People these days are 'OMG'ing and 'WTF'ing instead of saying 'you beauty; bonza; you little ripper!' Not to mention 'strewth' and 'crikey'.
This has been written about before, but no one seems to be taking much notice. Our country is being Yankified faster than I can get out of my socks.
'Mate' and 'cobber' have been replaced by 'dude', 'buddy' and 'pal'. Think about that for a minute. Think about 'G'day mate'. 'G'day buddy' just doesn't sound as good.
It's unAustralian.
Even our rhyming slang is fast disappearing. When was the last time someone offered you some 'dead horse' (sauce) to go on your pie'n'chips? When did anyone ask how the 'billy-lids' (kids) are doing at school?
Then there's the distinctly Aussie metaphors. 'A few snags short of a barbie; a few roos loose in the top paddock; camp as a row of tents'. Someone on the large side, a strong, hefty fellow, might be described as 'built like a brick s***-house'. (outhouse; dunny). He could also be as 'fit as a mallee bull'.
Anyone throwing a bit of a tantrum would be 'carrying on like a pork chop'.
The article goes on to say "we must keep the cornerstone of our dialect - G'day- in daily use if we're 'ridgy-didge' and 'fair dinkum' about keeping our language (vernacular) alive.
When immigrants arrived here after World War 2, they assimilated fairly quickly and most were soon talking just like us.
But with accents.
Nowadays, with most Australianisms disappearing as fast as a new Maccas goes up, I don't think the current crop of newbies, mostly Asians and Indians, has much of a chance. They'll assimilate, they'll get jobs, their billy-lids will go to school, but I can't see any of them saying 'stone the flamin' crows', or 'she'll be right mate', 'dead set', 'bob's your uncle', 'safe as houses'. With or without accents.
And just for the record, Australians eat bikkies (biscuits) not cookies. Our billy-lids eat lollies, not candy.
Don't get me wrong here, I still like all my American friends, and their choc-chip cookies, I just wish that more of us Australians were interested in keeping the old sayings alive.
Sadly, that won't happen. A couple of generations from now, all that will be left is an occasional newspaper article like the one I've mentioned here.
" A small dog gets up everyday with just one thought on his mind," my vet had cautioned. "And that thought is 'I will bend you to my will.'"
Small dogs must think they are cats (*~*)
Today's Thoughts:
I had a thought a while ago, (don't know where it came from, but there it was in my head), that I should try a cream cheese&chopped raisins spread on my bread.
So I bought spreadable cream cheese and a packet of raisins and a new loaf of rye bread, chopped some raisins, mixed them into about a tablespoon of cream cheese and spread it over a slice of bread.
And how was it?
Awful.
Really, really awful.
I'll never listen to those thoughts again.
The cream cheese is pushed to the back of the fridge until I decide what to do with it.
The raisins will get chopped into the oats/dried fruits mix I cook as porridge for breakfast.
**********
An article in our local free weekly paper bemoans the loss of some (most) of our Aussie colloquialisms. People these days are 'OMG'ing and 'WTF'ing instead of saying 'you beauty; bonza; you little ripper!' Not to mention 'strewth' and 'crikey'.
This has been written about before, but no one seems to be taking much notice. Our country is being Yankified faster than I can get out of my socks.
'Mate' and 'cobber' have been replaced by 'dude', 'buddy' and 'pal'. Think about that for a minute. Think about 'G'day mate'. 'G'day buddy' just doesn't sound as good.
It's unAustralian.
Even our rhyming slang is fast disappearing. When was the last time someone offered you some 'dead horse' (sauce) to go on your pie'n'chips? When did anyone ask how the 'billy-lids' (kids) are doing at school?
Then there's the distinctly Aussie metaphors. 'A few snags short of a barbie; a few roos loose in the top paddock; camp as a row of tents'. Someone on the large side, a strong, hefty fellow, might be described as 'built like a brick s***-house'. (outhouse; dunny). He could also be as 'fit as a mallee bull'.
Anyone throwing a bit of a tantrum would be 'carrying on like a pork chop'.
The article goes on to say "we must keep the cornerstone of our dialect - G'day- in daily use if we're 'ridgy-didge' and 'fair dinkum' about keeping our language (vernacular) alive.
When immigrants arrived here after World War 2, they assimilated fairly quickly and most were soon talking just like us.
But with accents.
Nowadays, with most Australianisms disappearing as fast as a new Maccas goes up, I don't think the current crop of newbies, mostly Asians and Indians, has much of a chance. They'll assimilate, they'll get jobs, their billy-lids will go to school, but I can't see any of them saying 'stone the flamin' crows', or 'she'll be right mate', 'dead set', 'bob's your uncle', 'safe as houses'. With or without accents.
And just for the record, Australians eat bikkies (biscuits) not cookies. Our billy-lids eat lollies, not candy.
Don't get me wrong here, I still like all my American friends, and their choc-chip cookies, I just wish that more of us Australians were interested in keeping the old sayings alive.
Sadly, that won't happen. A couple of generations from now, all that will be left is an occasional newspaper article like the one I've mentioned here.
.png)
If you don't like the way someone talks, why don't you just throw 'em on the barbie, mate?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that our family used 'built like....' on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteThat cream cheese and raising sammie sounds good, except for the bread. A nice French loaf would have been wonderful (in my mouth, of course).
ReplyDeleteHi River,
ReplyDeleteAmericanisms are infecting British English too. Don't get me started on that - I'll rant forever!!!
:o)
Cheers
PM
fishducky; but that would be rude, and I don't have a barbie anyway.
ReplyDeleteDelores; that one probably isn't exclusively Australian :)
Joanne; a French loaf would have been yummy, I like their bread, but the cheese&raisin combination was wrong. Perhaps I chose the wrong cheese, but I still won't try it again.
Plasman; they're taking over the world, mate! It's the TV influence probably.
Bonzer post, me ol' China plate. I hope no septic tanks get their knickers in a knot.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Never hear our language anymore, cant say i ever did hear it much, odd time or two & I'm the older generation now.
ReplyDeleteTalking to foreigners one knows they were taught American english, it's their accent.
One man i knew well was of dark skin and he spoke British English like the men from the BBC..
I was reading online an article that we Australians are getting lazy with our speach, not sounding our 'l' in Australia and so on. It was said we are sounding like we are drunk all the time...didn't take me long to agree.
Such a shame. Since I've never been to Australia, (darn it!) I can't take any actual blame for the Americanization of your language, but I still feel badly about the loss of some of your delightfully unique expressions. Crocodile Dundee wouldn't have been nearly as appealing if he spoke like a plain ol' run-of-the-mill American.
ReplyDeleteThe Yankification of language is happening here in Yank-land as well... many of our pithy sayings and colloquialisms are disappearing.
ReplyDeleteWe've all been affected by the non-accent and bland speech of news announcers, and homogenized by the internet. Pfeh I say!
Do you like banana bread? If so, trying making a spread with your cream cheese and some crushed pineapple with a bit of the juice. Mmmmm good! A savoury spread might perhaps be a bit better with rye.
I, too, hope we never lose our Aussie sayings..our unique Aussie words and slang. I still use "biscuits" and "lollies", not "candy" or "cookies". And scones are scones, not biscuits!! We must retain who we are...not mimic others...become clones of others.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could add icing sugar or caster sugar (or honey, even) and a drop or two of vanilla to the cream cheese and blend it up as you would when making a dip...and then, chop the raisins coarsely and add them to it. Just a thought...or perhaps, as Jacqueline says...turn the cream cheese into a savoury spread.
Jacquelineand is right, we are losing our accents and colloquialisms also. There are five boroughs in NYC and they all used to have separate accents, now they all sound the same. I blame TV. Stop watching American TV, i love the Aussie accent, sayings and attitude.
ReplyDeleteI put raisins in everything, even tuna salad, I'm still gonna try it on cream cheese.
Andrew; me too, I'd hate to lose any of my readers. Well done :)
ReplyDeleteMargaret-whiteangel; we are a lazy bunch, no "L" in Australia and we don't pronounce our "Rs" either. "Ts" get lost too, often becoming "Ds". My sister speaks British English.
Susan; I agree our colloquialisms are what made us unique in the English speaking world. Now we're just another element in the melting pot.
Jacquelineand...I'm surprised to hear that even within America you all are becoming standardised as to speech. I blame TV and I certainly hope the south doesn't lose its unique speech patterns. I do like banana bread, but prefer it plain with a cup of tea or coffee.
Lee; we're going to have to work harder to keep the old words alive. It would help a lot if more Australian TV series were made with the actors using "our" language. (biscuits, scones, dunny etc). But what happens when the series or any movies go overseas? Remember what happened to Mad Max? The title was changed.....
The cream cheese will become a mini cheesecake for a farewell dinner I'm going to soon.
joeh; so pretty soon all you New 'Joisey' people will start sounding just like anyone else on TV? That's sad. Individuality is being lost everywhere it seems. I put raisins in salads too, along with pineapple and whatever else i have handy.
I bemoan the loss of our Aussie lingo too.
ReplyDeleteI grew up around pubs, so, slang was very dominant among the Aussie Battlers.
And, in my school years, the very popular Paul Hogan Show and movies like Alvin Purple, perpetuated the many phrases.
But, as we become more multi cultural - and more "PC", we farewell those sayings.
Yes, in a few generations, it will be no longer the vernacular DownUnder.
There was a cultural cringe attached to Aussie slang years back, and a conscious effort by many to remove the lingo, as it was considered rude, crude and unsophisticated. It became a parody.
That's sad really.
We're already very Americanised by TV, movies and media.
And, we follow their "model" in many other ways, like business.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, is the most scariest of them all. Bad changes ahead...
You could use the rest of the cream cheese to make a delicious icing on a cake, or whip up a dip with a little sweet chilli sauce or, a French onion soup packet - like we all did in the 70's :)
Even the Americanisms are not LOCAL WORDS so believe it or not, I associate very much with what you've written. Drives me freaking nuts.
ReplyDeleteI lived my first several years on the east coast and a fair bit of time in Connecticut. When I lived in Australia, people wanted to imitate my accent for a school play they were doing... Oklahoma.
They wouldn't listen to me tell them that I spoke *entirely differently* than the people in the play ought. American was American to them. Well... no, it isn't. Our sayings are different, our cadence is different, the way we discuss things is different.
What you see on TV and so forth is actually learnt speech. Look at people like Chris Christie or Ted Cruz speak - you can tell where they are from if you listen to them long enough. Trump - ha!- what a typical New Yorker. Let's hope we don't have to hear him yap on much longer or worse yet as president. :)
Vicki; I loved the Paul Hogan Show, it was 100% Australian and so funny. Didn't like Alvin Purple though.
ReplyDeleteCultural cringe? Surely not. We may have been unsophisticated, but we're just as good as any other country. We should have revelled in our uniqueness.
Our French Onion Dip was/is always made with sour cream.
Happy Elf Christine; I know that what we hear on TV and in movies is learned "accents" , you hear similar from different actors who all went to the same drama or acting school. For this reason alone, a lot of Americanisms will be just as lost as our Australianisms, since everyone wants to sound like their favourite actor (*~*)
I've never heard Donald Trump speak and that's just fine with me.
River, your mistake was using raisins, should have been sultanas, sweeter. Try using the cream cheese in pastry, look for Maggie Beer's recipe. It makes the lightest pastry ever.
ReplyDeleteCrikey - to preserve Aussie Lingo, perhaps we Americans should should start adopting some of it, and losing some of our less appealling slang! The Aussie accent and colloquialisms are really quite a national treasure ... I hope they will endure!
ReplyDelete