Getting used to the lingo...

It has been a while since I have posted to this blog, so I thought that I was due.

As most of you would summize, they do speak Engish here in Australia. Of course it is not American English, but rather a closer cousin to UK English. Note that I say "closer cousin" because Australian English is different from UK English as well as being different from American English.

Of course there is the accent to get used to... kind of a mash between a southern drawl and bostonian pronounciation of certain sounds (think "cah" instead of "car" and "sistuh" instead of "sister") and an English accent. But then combine that with the Aussie penchant for being verbally lazy (by truncating a lot of words and/or adding an "o" to the end), and it makes for an interesting time trying to decipher what they are saying. At least until you get the gist of it.  Here are some examples of what I mean by verbally lazy. I know that we abreviate Air Conditioning to AC in the USA. However, the aussies call it "aircon". Car registration is called "rego". Breakfast is called "breaky". Conversation is "convo". Christmas is called "Chrissy". A Mercedes is called a "Merc". The list goes on and on.

So as you can imagine, your first few conversations with aussies can be a bit befudling. However, once you catch onto the pattern it is not too bad. It is nice to be aware of these differences ahead of time (which I was not by the way). But I am managing just fine. :)