More on lingo

A few months after I arrived in Australia my husband, Steve, called me at home while he was working for the day in Melbourne.

"Hey babe," he said. "Why don't you catch the train and I'll meet you here. We'll go out for tea [dinner]."

I was just familiar enough with Ballarat to drive myself to the train station, and always-up-for-adventure-me said, "Sure!" Melbourne is about 90 minutes away.

So I called and checked departure times, and drove myself there without mishap. Pretty proud of myself, I was.

I got into the queue [line] and ordered my ticket. The nice man at the counter asked me if I wanted concession.

I looked at him blankly, while my mind raced in order to answer him timely. I'd had a late brekky [breakfast]. I imagined paying a bit extra for soft drink or coffee, little bags of snacks such as pretzels or potato chips from someone wandering the aisles with a cart. So I looked at him, smiled, and said, "No thank you, I'll be fine until I get there."

The kind man looked at me, puzzled, then grinned as he handed me a ticket and wished me a safe and happy trip. He reminded me of Father Mulcahey on M*A*S*H.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I learned "concession" doesn't mean a snack bar. It is Australia's term for someone who gets a discounted ticket, such as those on welfare, or *cough* the elderly. He wanted to know if I was eligible.

I can only imagine what went through that ticketmaster's mind! I told Steve; he laughed himself silly.

I was reminded of that when I read an article in this month's Outback magazine. I bought a subscription for Steve's birthday last year because he loves it, but I use it as a tool to understand this country and whet my appetite for exploring.

There is a feature, Yarn Spinner, about Sandy Thorne, a storyteller and bush poet. She is renowned Australia-wide for her humor in conveying the outback to others. She's even been on the David Letterman show.

Here is an excerpt...

"So you'd like to learn the lingo of the Aussies from the bush
Where men are tough as gidgee, far from the city push
Where the women muster blowflies in the blazing outback sun
And the children crack big mulga snakes like stockwhips, just for fun.
Where you ride all day to travel from one boundary to the next,
You'll find the dinkum Aussies, away out in the west."

"Now fair-dinkum means ridgy-didge, or genuine or true
And if you've made a big mistake, mate, you've made a blue
But if some mug bungs on a blue, he's tried to start a fight
He's a nong, a galah, a drongo...a ratbag all flamin' right!
--probably not the full quid--just nineteen `n' six up top
--mad as a bag of cut snakes, a few wallabies loose in his crop."

I understand it mateys, and here is my best translation as an American:

gidgee--a hardwood tree...pretty tough...like iron.
muster--round up, as in cattle.
blowflies--aka "blowies," big, heavy, pesky flies common anywhere but especially where it's hot and they gather by the hundreds, especially over meat. In some places around the world they are known as cadaver flies.
mulga--a dry, desert area, I think
traveling from one boundary to the next--cattle stations cover several hundreds of square miles and take a day or two to get across. Very common in the outback.
mug--fella who thinks he's big stuff
ninteen `n' six up top--You're on your own. I don't know.
mad as a bag of cut snakes--you can imagine.
wallabies--smallish version of kangaroo, considered rodents. They decimate crops.

This woman was also a jillaroo, a female version of a jackaroo...someone who helped drovers [cowboys] muster cattle and take them to another station or somewhere they could be sold as beef on the hoof, as we know it. In America, cattle drives would fit this bill. Although not as common in America anymore, it is still a thriving industry here.

"I loved it," Sandy is quoted as saying. "Once I proved to the men I could ride as well as them, and handle the rough conditions, I was accepted as an equal workmate--even though women were paid a lot less. It was a case of swags [sleeping blankets] on the ground, salt beef and spuds."

The article goes on to say that Sandy enjoyed secretly writing about it, over the dying embers of a campfire every night.

Here is an excerpt from her "jillarooing" days:

"We started at five on a long cattle drive
But on Sundays, slept till dawn
Working 'til dark, we'd dip brand and mark,
Never filled in a union [labor] form.
We ate beef that was tough, the cook was as rough
as his tucker [food] that churned in our guts
When hitting the booze, he's serve "mystery stews"
of onion peel, gristle and butts.
At night we lay fryin' in galvanized iron;
The frogs that resided, quite often collided
with snakes, in a screaming refrain."

Here's to Australian lingo, and American lingo...vive le differance!