Elephants are so intelligent. Watch this wonderful animal digging a hole to reach water in the heat of summer in South Africa.
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Today’s photos are from May 28, 2019, from Connemara, Ireland. Please click here for more details.
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| Pansies at the Connemara Heritage and History Centre appear to have little faces. |
As we’ve traveled the world during the past 7½ plus years, we’ve somehow managed to pick up language nuances from many countries we’ve visited. Surprisingly, the majority of citizens of most countries speak English except in select European countries.
During our stays in non-English speaking countries, we’ve somehow managed to learn a few words, sufficient enough to get us by. Also, when we’ve chosen to live in more remote locations, English most certainly wasn’t the first language of choice.
Here in India, it’s a mix. Many speak excellent English while again, in more remote locations, Hindi and one of 22 other languages are expressed as follows:
“India has 22 official languages, namely Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.”
During our stays in non-English speaking countries, we’ve somehow managed to learn a few words, sufficient enough to get us by. Also, when we’ve chosen to live in more remote locations, English most certainly wasn’t the first language of choice.
Here in India, it’s a mix. Many speak excellent English while again, in more remote locations, Hindi and one of 22 other languages are expressed as follows:
“India has 22 official languages, namely Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.”
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| Tom has been wearing the flannel shirt he purchased in Penguin, Tasmania, in 2016/2017. It comes in handy in cooler weather in Ireland. |
Unfortunately, with few interactions with locals during our now four months in India, we’ve had little opportunity to learn much of the Hindi language. Many drivers, hotel staff, and other service professionals speak good English, although, at times, it’s been tricky to decipher their English due to their very rich Indian accent.
But, like most countries, there are nuances used in speaking English, whether it’s the native language or the second most common language. Many of those nuances have been endearing to us. Invariably, we’ve picked up some along the way.
The most prevalent in our minds is in Australia, The UK, and South Africa, all of which were British colonies that share many common nuances and slang usage of the English language, which over centuries have become commonplace.
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| Tom stands in the doorway of an old building located on the grounds of the centre. |
Let’s start with Australia. Here is a list of some of their most slang expressions which we always found the most humorous from this site:
1. Arvo: afternoon
2. Barbie: barbeque
3. Bogan: redneck, an uncultured person. According to the Australian show Bogan Hunters, a real bogan sports a flanno (flannel shirt), a mullet, missing teeth, homemade tattoos (preferably of the Australian Flag or the Southern Cross), and has an excess of Australian paraphernalia. This “species of local wildlife” can be found by following their easily distinguishable tracks from burnouts or the smell of marijuana.
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| It’s easy to see how tiny this lamb is standing next to Tom. |
4. Bottle-O: bottle shop, liquor store
5. Chockers: very full
6. Esky: cooler, insulated food, and drink container
7. Fair Dinkum: true, real, genuine
8. Grommet: young surfer
9. Mozzie: mosquito
10. Pash: a long passionate kiss. A pash rash is red, irritated skin due to a heavy make-out session with someone with a beard.
11. Ripper: great
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| Me, in the doorway of the old fieldstone building on the ground of the center. |
12. Roo: kangaroo. A baby roo, still in the pouch, is known as a Joey
13. Root: sexual intercourse. This one can get foreigners in trouble. There are numerous stories about Americans coming to Australia telling people how they love to “root for their team.” If you come to Australia, you would want to use the word “barrack” instead. On the same note, a “wombat” is someone who eats roots and leaves.
14. Servo: gas station. In Australia, a gas station is called a petrol station.
15. She’ll be right: everything will be all right
16. Sickie: sick day. If you take a day off work when you are not sick, it’s called chucking a sickie.
Pretty flowers were blooming on the shore of the lake in the garden. Thanks to reader Laurie for identifying these flowers as rhododendron!
17. Slab: 24-pack of beer
18. Sook: to sulk. If someone calls you a sook, it is because they think you are whinging
19. Stubbie holder: koozie or cooler. A stubbie holder is a polystyrene insulated holder for a stubbie, a 375ml bottle of beer.
20. Sweet as: sweet, awesome. Aussies will often put ‘as’ at the end of adjectives to give it emphasis. Other examples include lazy as lovely as, fast as, and common as.
21. Ta: thank you
22. Togs: swimsuit
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| These two buildings were homes at one time. |
23. Tradie: a tradesman. Most of the tradies have nicknames, too, including brickie (bricklayer), truckie (truck driver), sparky (electrician), garbo (garbage collector), and chippie (carpenter).
24. Ute: Utility vehicle, pickup truck
25. Whinge: whine
26. Good onya, mate! Understanding the Aussies should be easy as now.
No doubt, we didn’t pick up all of these while we were in and out of Australia for 22 months, from June 2015 to April 2017. But, we certainly can know what Aussies are talking about in general “convo” (conversation) when these expressions are used.
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| Bridge across the lake to an old home. |
We have often wondered when in the company of Australians if we should use their expressions or if we’d be too presumptuous to attempt to mimic them. An occasional word was thrown out here and there that seems to pass with flying colors when they, too, often chuckle over our attempts to fit in.
Tomorrow, we’ll be back with the same for British expressions for which, most likely, we’ve experienced more frequently.
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| These beautiful flowers are often found in Ireland. |
Not much is happening today. As usual, we’re hanging out, doing the usual. Our cable box quit working. Within minutes, a hotel staff member stopped by (we were all wearing masks) and had it working in no time. I’m still waiting to hear back from the dentist for my upcoming appointment. Status quo.
May your day be safe.
Photo from one year ago today, May 28, 2019:
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| Note the little horns were growing on this lamb. Too cute! For more photos, please click here. |