X-VMS-To: IN%"WORDS-L%UGA.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU"
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:55:47 +1000
From:         LNCJB@WOMBAT.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Aussies
Comments: To: WORDS-L%UGA.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU

Agnes,

Now, for my third attempt.

>I guess I thought you were one of the many NZlanders in Australia..

Aah! So you know the problems we have with KIWIS.... Karen obviously doesn't
otherwise she would have known why I chose the term 'expatriot' rather than
'expatriated'.... Dan's response was closer to the mark. :-)

>there are lots of things I don't know about Autralia

I hope that's a typo and not a reference to the 'selfish country'.

>For example, off the top of my head: do Australians *really* say
>"D'day!", "Mayte", "sheila" [the latter to refer to women,
>pejoratively, I believe]...

"G'day Mate" is an informal male to male greeting... mainly heard in pubs or
on the street. "Gu'day Love" is the most common male to female one under the
same circumstances. There are five ways females usually respond to this:-
1) "Hi, howyagoin?" (a come-on)
2) "Hello."  (distant but not unfriendly)
3) "Hmmph!" (unfriendly)
4) No response.
5) "Get lost .... Prick!"

"Sheila" as a reference to the women in general, I've not heard since the
early 50's except in movies and on TV soaps.

>Is Autralian culture as anti-female as my ex-office mate suggested (who,
>though considered very, very bright, even among theoretical physicists, might
>have encountered extra heavy doses of this anti-female attitude, being in a
>mostly male field)...

Not in any academic area I've been in in the last 15 years. Of course, I
occasionally come across individuals who cling desperately to past attitudes,
but they are relatively few in number. If you hang around pubs though in all
male company, you might get that impression - but when the 'little woman'
shows up it becomes obvious that this is not the real-state of things.... just
a fantasy of the collective male ego.

>Do ordinary normal Australian MALES really go "rooing" - going out in
>jeeps in the middle of the night with headlights to shoot kangaroos, taking
>their tails as trophies - as casually as other men might go fishing or to the
>corner store ?

Only the 'yahoos'.... the ordinary lower working class male Aussie is a
beer-swilling, football-fanatical, lounge lizard. The remainder are as
diverse as any group of normal people indistinguishable from Canadians or
Americans until they open their mouths. :-)

>Canadians have a special place for Australia [I think sort of
>a soft spot]- regarding them as sort of cousins in the British
>colonial family, evolving under similar circumstances: a vast, at
>times/places geographically/humanly challenging country with a
>sparse population...there are frequent comparisons/contrasts
>in the political science lit between the two political systems.

Australians, in general, feel that way too. Visiting Americans could expect
to receive a mixed reaction, but I've never seen a Canadian not welcomed over
here.

>Agnes
>who, though a Canadian, NEVER says "eh?"
>Got that - eh? <grin>

Yep... and I never finish my sentences with "you know?", you know?

Carolyn
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU