Now look here mates, we're just dumb Americans over here and sometimes I get the feeling that you, and Chris and Dave, love to throw us those colloquialisms from OZ just to confuse us. And it's working!

It's bad enough you blokes gave me a book to read that includes every bit of slang in your language. And I went to the store to find a set of tapes on how to speak Australian. I couldn't find a set. They have tapes to teach you how to speak Spanish, French, German, and even Japanese! But apparently learning to speak Australian is just too difficult.

For example take this sentence from the first page in the book you sent me to read:

"The cockatoos displayed wonderful celerity in hunting up every species of horseflesh capable of carrying a pack or pulling in leading harness; even the wild brumbys soon learnt that neither jibbing nor kicking could avail in face of the resolution displayed, and soon a motley collection of waggons, drays, and other conveyances started on the sandy track leading to Mt. Magnet."

Why would you have birds who let their celerities hang out, go about getting horses. Why in America if you display your wonderful celerity, you'll get arrested. You just don't go around letting your celerity hang out no matter how wonderful you might think it is; it's just not done in polite company.

And how the heck do you train cockatoos to herd horses anyway? And then we have the wild brumbys, what the hell are brumbys? And how long have they been in OZ and if they've been there for a while, how come you haven't domesticated them? Is a wild brumby something like a wild brunette? Because in America we always think of blondes as being wilder than brunettes.

Then we have the drays jibbing, and the brumbys being wild and displaying their cockatoos, who eat celery. I have to stop after every two pages because I get a migraine headache.

And look at that quote from the book again. A 61 word run on sentence. One stinkin' period in the whole paragraph. Apparently when God was handing out periods you Aussies said, "nah we don't need any more of those Supreme Mate Being, but how 'bout a bit more of that gold ya' got there?"

At least that run on sentence makes me proud! It does my heart good to know someone else writes like I do.

So tell me, I know those cockatoos are smart birds but can you teach them to do other things besides round up horses? I mean can they be trained to do the dishes or help the wife clean the house?

If I send you some money could you perhaps look around for an Australian to American English translation dictionary and mail it to me? Along with a couple of those cockatoos that can do yard work and wash cars?

And that CRIKEY word. Is it a long "I" as in BIKE, like a little child might say, "I'm going to go ride my bikey." Or is the "I" a short one as in ICKEY, like "That girl's face is really ICKEY!"

Or do you guys just make up these words because you know we are all over here sitting scratching our heads and saying, "WHAT?" And we're all too proud to admit we don't have a clue as to what you mean.

Well that's all for now.

Let's be careful out there and CRIKEY watch out for those cockatoos jibbing those wild brumbys with their celery!

All my best! I'm sure I speak for the rest of the group when I say: this wouldn't be near as interesting a forum without our Mates from Down Under.

Doc ;-)

• Yep, Doc. Jim McCulloch 16:04:21 4/13/99 (0)
• Re: CRIKEY?? CRIKEY??, Steve in KB what the hell is CRIKEY???!! hoss 06:25:15 4/13/99 (2)
  • That's hysterical! Poor Bobbie, should we call out Search and Rescue? n/t Greg Lousignont, PhD 07:08:12 4/13/99 (1)
    • Re: That's hysterical! Poor Bobbie, should we call out Search and Rescue? n/t hoss 07:38:22 4/13/99 (0)