So, you think you speak English. . .

Well, you need to specify which English it is that you speak. Just because we all speak English doesn't mean that we all speak the same language!! It was somewhat disconcerting upon arrival in this English speaking country to realize that we couldn't always understand what people were saying to us. Language has been one of our most pervasive cross-cultural experiences here.

Let's start with the letter "r." At first notice, Australians seem to be almost disdainful of this letter as they cast off its pronunciation with shocking abandon. Melbourne is pronounced "Melbun" and Cairns "Cans." In English class, Ian was taught this list of words as a list of homophones, pronounced identically but spelled differently: poor, pour, pore, paw. They are all pronounced without a final "r." However, after further consideration, I have concluded that Australians must not have anything too great against poor "r" because there are other instances where they actually add it to their pronunciation. My informal observation is that this occurs at the end of a word when the last syllable is unstressed and ends in a schwa-ish vowel. Thus, Hannah is often "Hanner," to her great distress, and idea is "ideer."

Besides being a little unclear on what to do with the letter "r," Australians are also not sure what to do with some of their longer words. They have a habit of shortening words and sticking an -o on the end. Thus garbage is "garbo." A musician is a "muso." You take a pesky skin rash to the "dermo." Etcetero, etcetero. The goal cannot be verbal efficiency. Anyone who takes the time to pronounce "al-u-min-i-um" instead of aluminum or "show-en" for shown is not seriously looking for time saving measures.

"Tea" deserves a paragraph of its own. True to its British traditions - and I must add that Adelaide prides itself on being the most British of the Australian cities, being founded by British freemen rather than criminals - "tea" is a serious matter here. First, there is tea, the hot drink, prevalent in most homes here. Then, there is tea, the event, where tea the hot drink is drunk accompanied by nice biscuits, sometimes by scones and clotted cream. Yum! This tea is often social in nature and usually falls into 2 categories: morning tea or afternoon tea. Then, there is tea, the evening meal, synonymous for supper or dinner in American English. We were taught early on that an invitation to tea was an invitation to supper (in American) while an invitation to supper was an invitation to evening tea and biscuits. I never before knew a small 3 letter word could be so complex!

Then, there are those words that are just plain different from our American vocabulary. Here's a short list for you to figure out for fun. Yes, they are all G rated. We'll post the definitions in a week, I hope. .
1. arvo
2. busking
3. fringe
4. lift
5. texta
6. trolley
7. recess
8.tick
9. shout
10. Salvos
11. pacer
12. flat white
13. long black
14. bathers
15. thongs
16. mate
17. togs
18. concession
19. gap
20. docket
21. fairy floss
22. jumper
23. chook
24. minis
25. barbie