CBC commentary on that Aussie Lingo: Why can’t Canadians be as colourful as Aussies?

There’s nothing like a trip abroad to cast a new light on your own little patch, is there? That’s why I’ve been listening to Canadian English with new ears lately, wondering, “why can’t Canadians sound a bit more like Australians?”

Then, you might hear us say, “When that DRONGO cut in front of me just now, I wanted to HOICK him out of his car and bash the last SKERRICK of juice out of him, I was that ROPABLE.”

Isn’t that more colourful than, “That idiot who cut me off made me so mad I felt like punching him.”.

I miss those pugnacious Aussie words like hoon and bonzer. And I miss the Aussie mania for shortening words – acco for academic and lippie for lipstick; Salvo for Salvation Army and tinnie for can of beer. By comparison, our Canadian English is the equivalent of a blanc-mange pudding: nourishing but horribly bland.

I keep imagining Canada as a country linguistically in love with itself, where there is a sense of fun, even a bit of outrageousness in the way we talk.

I imagine CBC announcers aping their ABC counterparts, saying that “a medicare stoush has bubbled to the surface.” Stoush is a legitimate Aussie noun meaning a fight or struggle. For instance, the First World War was the Big Stoush. Etymologically, it is a variation of the Scots word “stash or stashie, ” meaning uproar. Given our endless federal-provincial jousting, isn’t such a word essential to Canadian English?

And then there is RORT, which sounds like a variant of “snort,” something a pig does while rooting after truffles. Adapted from 19th-century British usage, rort once had a sexual dimension, meaning to enjoy oneself boisterously in the sack. Now, it means, “an unprincipled manipulation of the system,” usually perpetrated by politicians.

Aussie words convey meaning in the most pugnacious way possible. Consider the excellent word YAKKA, a quintessentially Australian term for work, hard yakka being what Australian battlers believe has made their country great, despite its isolation and distant convict past.

Aussie lingo is rich in metaphors and similes. One of my favourites is Flat out like a lizard drinking, to mean throwing oneself totally into a task.

So I’m thinking, what if we launched a two-part campaign to punch up our Canadian English and sharpened our sense of identity in the process? What if we adapted a few colourful Aussie terms to get us started, then explored diction in our own far-flung regions?

For starters, we could stop trotting out “eh?” as our only linguistic quirk. With words such as BONZER (beautiful or great) and YOBBO (lout) and SHONKY (dubious) as a base, we could mutate into colourful talkers in no time.

We might get our juices flowing by perusing the magnificent Dictionary of Newfoundland English, where we’ll find the word “mampus” (sometimes mompus) to mean “a crowd or numerous group.” Isn’t that a fine adjective for the gang gathering for your Canada Day BBQ? And how about the word “sharoosed” (sometimes sharooshed) to mean “thoroughly disgusted or displeased.” Who doesn’t feel sharoosed by the way world events are unfolding these days?

And we surely need to adopt the Aussie tradition of descriptive epithets. The Macquarie Book of Slang notes that someone who is “Three bangers short of a Barbie” is a bit slow. An enemy might have not enough brains to give himself a headache. Or she might have a few roos loose in the top paddock. We could localize that latter phrase to “A few beaver loose in the dugout,” don’t you think?

Finally, it’s worth noting that Australians dare to demonstrate wit in their business dealings: in Sydney, you can find a bed linen shop called Holy Sheet! ; Staid Adelaide boasts a liquor store called Booze Brothers. Now that our dollar’s showing health, can we not have a bit of fun in the marketplace?

Let’s not be bloody wombats, Canadians. Let’s wield language as a sharp spade, not a dull shovel.