Yet the Australians have taken abbreviations to new and previously unforeseen heights. If a word is over two syllables, it’s too long for an Australian, or, because that word is FAR too long, an Aussie. Even their quintessential greeting, G’day, is an abbreviation of “Good Day to You Sir, I Trust the Livestock Are All Well? And How Is Your Lovely Wife? Not Been Carried Off By a Kangaroo Yet, I Hope.” Or something like that, anyway.
Let’s start with nicknames. Every Australian male has a nickname. If one does not readily present itself, he will receive a prefab nickname, following a couple easy templates.
1. Add “o.” Nick becomes Nicko, Tim becomes Timbo and so on.
2. Add “azzer.” This one is slightly inexplicable, but Gary becomes Gazzer, Darren becomes Dazzer, and so on. I like to call this nickname formulation the “Santa’s Reindeer Formula” because I think that “On, Gazzer! On, Dazzer!” has a fun sort of ring to it.
3. You will receive a nickname regarding some aspect of your appearance or character. It may range from the obvious, “Ranga” (as in orangutan) for a red-headed person, to the more obscure. For instance, I heard of a guy whose nickname was “Scoop” because on his first day at a new job, he thought a dustpan was called a scoop.
Jamie’s nickname, for those of you who may be wondering, is “Tits”, a bastardized abbreviation of his last name. Because he has a little brother who shares many of the name friends, occasionally he becomes “Big Tits.” So for those of you who may be putting two and two together, yes, that means someday, I may have the dubious honor of becoming “Mrs. Tits.” Fingers crossed, everyone!
But the Australian obsession with abbrevs doesn’t stop at proper nouns. Breakfast is brekkie, afternoons are arvos, gas stations are servos, and of course, as everyone knows, you never throw another shrimp on the barbeque, you throw it on the barbie!
Not Like That
Cookies are bikkies, chickens are chooks, and we continue ad nauseum until you realize you can fake it by dropping the last syllable and adding “y” or “o.”
But therein lies the true mystique of Australian slang. All of these abbrevs are rather, well, cutesy. If they weren’t being barked at you by a tanned, 6 foot tall man with arms as big around as your torso, you might confuse them for baby talk. And for a country who ran an entire tourism campaign on the slogan: “Australia: Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” this may seem slightly off. But in my opinion, it is the very bloke-y-ness of Australia that allows it to get away with all the strange abbreviations. There is something just strange enough about calling a tradesmen a tradie, a carpenter a chippie or an electrician a sparkie when you know that they are big strapping men who could probably kill you on their smoke-o (smoking break) and be back to work by 10:15. Frankly, I think the fact that Australia is populated largely by tall, muscular, tanned individuals gives them the right to call things pretty much whatever the hell they want.
And with that, I’ll leave with the true master of the abbrevs, Tom Haverford.
