Talk:Australian English vocabulary/Archive 1

message: I have never heard the theory that "pom" comes from "pompous" before. If this is merely conjecture on the part of the author of that edit, maybe it should be removed? MyallR 12:27, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've not heard of it either. In fact, I was the one who changed the original attribution ("Prisoner of Mother England") to "Origin Uncertain", which at present seems to be all that can be said about it. The P.O.M.E. explanation is definitely an urban myth, which appears to have originated in the 1960s, at which time this kind of cod acronym etymologies were popular (cf. F.U.C.K. and others). It seems as if the origins of the term have been lost. Personally, I don't mind being called a Pom, but 'pompous' is another matter ;-) Graham 06:08, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed!  : zig 02:35, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: I started a new page (fake etymology) for stories of this kind. Graham 23:48, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pom (Englishperson)

message: Polari is described as "a form of cant slang used in the gay subculture in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s". Use of 'bloke' long predates that - for instance, C.J. Dennis' "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke" was published in 1915. See also Talk:Polari on this point. --Calair 12:49, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that Polari was likely to have come from 19th century theatre-speak.  Just because it was popular in the 50s and 60s doesn't mean the terms originated then.  My SOED says it's from Shelta and Talk:Polari mentions the OED having a first citation in 1851. — Moilleadóir 16:51, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Bloke' from Polari?

message: I am not entirelly sure if some of these words are in use in the USA of other english speaking countries but i think that the following should be added to the article:
Oi: usually used to gain someones attention, for example "Oi you you tosser!"
Thong: called flip-flops by Americans but is starting to decline by American influence in the younger generations (why is it not called G-string in USA anyway?)
bougan (sp?): Usually of Anglo appearance, similar to American white trailer trash, stereotype of blue flannel shirts, big beer drinker, dole bludger, and lower class.
* It is bogan. There is a separate article on that and the related westie. L-Bit 10:25, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oi is definitely British English, but I've heard it used here in Aus too. Tosser seems to be gaining ground, as in the recent ad campaign against littering - which as a Pom I find quite amusing by the way ;-). Never heard Bougan or Bogan, but I understand "ocker" to be the same thing, no?Graham 06:47, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Words to Add to Australian vocabulary 

message: One possible theory on why Australians call "peppers" capsicums may be to avoid confusion with the other form of pepper, the ground or unground berries of the genus Piper. What term is generally used by American or British English speakers to refer to table pepper? Is just "pepper" used, or "cayenne pepper", or what? thefamouseccles 10:10 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)
: That's black pepper, or white pepper as opposed to a green pepper, or a red pepper.  Both the colour and the need for an article (peppers are countable items, pepper isn't) remove ambiguity. When I'm asked whether I want pepper on my salad, I know that the waiter doesn't mean peppers.  -- Derek Ross 06:28, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean you never have salad with capsicum or jalepenos?--ZayZayEM 10:49, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Capsicums/Peppers

message: I'm confused as to why the link to the Macquarie Dictionary isn't seen as a link to a commercial product. It is sold after all.
:We're allowed to link to information about commercial products, including to the official websites of people selling commercial products. We even have quite a few articles about commercial products, including the Macquarie Dictionary. -- Tim Starling 06:07, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)
:There is no ban on links to commercial products. Rather, links to commercial products have to satisfy a two-part test: (1) The linked product has to be relevant to the article; and (2) The linked product's site has to contain information relevant to the article.
:The Aussie English CD doesn't meet part (2) of this test because the site in question doesn't have any information other than a sales pitch. While the Macquarie Dictionary site doesn't provide free access to the entire dictionary, it does provide free content from the dictionary, such as the full text of all the essays included in the dictionary as well as a dictionary of slang, both of which are directly relevant to the article. 
:Since the Macquarie Dictionary site has content that doesn't consist entirely of a sales pitch for the dictionary, a link here is relevant (not to mention the fact that Macquarie Dictionary is famous enough to have its own article. If The Aussie English CD had significant information about Australian English, then I don't think there would be a problem with having a link here. But since it is entirely a sales pitch, it isn't really relevant. Nohat 06:17, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macquarie Dictionary 

message: This expression is used just about anywhere that a famous or successful figure attracts public animosity, not just "in context of academia". Googling on '+"rene rivkin" +"tall poppy syndrome"' will find plenty of examples; if you need more, replace Rene with "alan bond" or "steve irwin".
Whether any of these fine gentlemen is *actually* a victim of TPS (as opposed to their own flaws) is another matter, but the term certainly enjoys widespread use. --Calair 23:24, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Tall poppy syndrome

message: It's strikes me that some of the slang can easily be mis-pronounced by non-Australians.  For example, "woop-woop" could be pronounced in a few different ways (eg, rhyming with "hoop-hoop") which are considered incorrect.
Unfortunately, I'm not a linguist, so I'm pretty awful when it comes to trying to write pronunication guides, or anything related to phonetics.  However I think the page would certainly benefit if someone linguistically-talented were able to do so.
--pjf 07:23, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation guides - A request.