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Post by Verbivore on Jan 1, 2020 11:31:09 GMT
With little to report of a quiet, solo New Year: for those northerners who missed out on a New Year bonfire here's one from DownUnder. We have plenty to spare. A top 2020 to all!
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 4, 2020 12:00:51 GMT
It took me a second or two to work out that "northerners" didn't mean northern English! The extent of the bush fires in Australia is almost beyond comprehension, Verbivore; if Hollywood had made a film about fires sweeping the entire continent, critics would have said it was too silly to be believable.
If we could swap most of this UK-winter's persistent rain for a little of your summer heat, I'm sure we'd be delighted to do so.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 4, 2020 23:36:31 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 5, 2020 11:40:08 GMT
I haven't lived in France but have spent many a happy holiday there, and I've observed that there are two Frances: Paris, and the rest of France. I know this is a monstrously sweeping generalisation, but many of the negative characteristics that we tend to attribute to the French - arrogance, lack of friendliness, offensive behaviour, for example - are found in the stereotypical Parisian but not elsewhere. The non-metropolitan French dislike Parisians for exactly that reason, and latters' haughtiness and disdain for non-Parisians causes considerable resentment when they try to lord it over the "peasants", especially in the "peasants'" back yards. Possibly it's the Parisians who do the automatic "Non"; I've not noticed it anywhere else.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 5, 2020 22:11:18 GMT
Here are 10 examples of Aussie slang and what they really mean.
1. Barry This means a terrible blunder, mistake or poor performance. It’s a shortened form of Barry Crocker, an Australian singer, entertainer and actor, which is rhyming slang for shocker.
2. Useful as This means completely useless and is used in many phrases, including: “Useful as tits on a bull, useful as a dry thunderstorm, useful as a third armpit, useful as a glass door on a dunny, useful as a pocket on a singlet, useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, useful as a submarine with screen doors, useful as a roo-bar on a skateboard”.
3. Do a Bradbury To win unexpectedly. As Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury did at the 2002 Winter Olympics when all other finalists fell, leaving Steven to come from a long way behind and win the gold medal. Can you “do a Bradbury”?
4. He couldn’t ... There are stacks of examples of this, used to describe someone who is incompetent or unintelligent: “Couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, couldn’t organise a root in a brothel, couldn’t get a kick in a stable, couldn’t pick a winner in a one horse race, couldn’t organise a fart in a curry house, couldn’t sell ice-cream in hell, couldn’t catch a fly in a country dunny, couldn’t sell beer to a drover, couldn’t sell ice to an eskimo, couldn’t train a choko vine to grow up a dunny wall, and a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic”.
5. Toorak taxi A city-based 4WD or SUV that never sees off-road driving — especially in Melbourne. Similar slang includes: “Double Bay tractor, Mosman tractor, North Shore tank, Rose Bay shopping trolley or Turramurra tractor in Sydney; Kenmore tractor in Brisbane”.
6. Busy as Uses include: “Busy as a bee with a bum full of honey and busier than a one-armed bill poster in a stiff breeze”.
7. Dog’s eye Rhyming slang for the great Aussie icon, a meat pie, and usually consumed with tomato sauce ("dead horse"). Could you get more Aussie than this?
8. Blue Ironically, this is a nickname for someone with red hair. It can also mean a mistake or a fight or dispute. While “Blue flyer” means an adult female red kangaroo.
9. Alcohol nicknames Barbed wire (used because the logo resembles barbed wire) or Yellow can — XXXX or XXXX Gold; Green death — Victoria Bitter (VB); Square bear — a 750ml bottle of Bundaberg Rum; Black rat — Bundy and Coke; Silver bullet — Reschs Pilsner; Dirty Annie — Reschs Dinner Ale; La Perouse Sydney — rhyming slang for booze; Red can — Melbourne Bitter can; Vomit bomb or very bad beer — VB; White can — A can of Carlton Draught or Swan Light.
10. Shirtfront This is a shoulder charge in Australian Rules football where a player instead of tackling an opponent, bumps them forcefully in the chest. It became popular in 2014 when prime minister Tony Abbott used the term in a perceived threat to Russian president Vladimir Putin: “Look, I’m going to shirtfront Mr Putin ... you bet I am.” As this did not occur, shirtfront can also be considered as a loud noisy threat that is not followed through.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 7, 2020 13:48:43 GMT
Hello, everyone. Happy New Year.
The slang themes in 2 and 4 are well established in the UK but perhaps not so variably or as imaginatively as in Oz. I think, “couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery” is the most common.
I think that “a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic” is probably in a different category but it, and a variety of other ideas, is also common. But people seem to delight in inventing their own versions and none seems universal.
The others are new to me and mostly seem only to be relevant to Oz.
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 8, 2020 12:09:24 GMT
In the UK we seem to have neither the extent nor richness of variation of that of Oz! "As much use as a chocolate teapot/fireguard" is about as far as we go. My uncle had a few choice turns of phrase, including describing the three most useless things in the Universe as, "A vote of thanks from the board of directors, the Pope's testicles, and … ", (sorry, I've forgotten the third one).
On a different subject, I find it difficult to keep up with the frequent changes in the terminology of political correctness. Toilets for disabled people used to be called "disabled toilets", which was daft enough because they'd be damn all use as toilets if they'd been disabled, but now they're "accessible toilets". One would hope that all toilets were accessible to their users, wouldn't one? Not much point in providing inaccessible ones.
The thing that really confuses me, though, is that apparently it's now a huge insult to call people with dark skin, "coloured people", and one must instead describe them as "people of colour". Why? I fail to see the difference; aren't they synonyms? And anyway, the blacker skin is the less colour it has! Never mind, by the time I get the hang of it they'll have thought up something else equally crazy: "pigmented persons", perhaps, or maybe we could reverse the system and refer to whites as "melanin-challenged"?
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 8, 2020 13:29:00 GMT
Yes, Twod, the use of "sensitive" terms is a mystery to me, too. I suppose it is the negative associations which cause the difficulty ... and negative associations are a societal thing, rather than semantic or logical. "Negro" is frowned upon, when it actually just means "black". Am I really a "white" person? I hope not, as that suggests I must be seriously ill. I dream of that day when it's as pointless in the general run of things to refer to a person's colour as it is to refer to their ability to roll their tongue - a fascinating difference, but so what?
I rather like the term "handicapped", too - still "able", but having to work through some sort of difficulty. But that's, apparently, a no-no.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 8, 2020 19:18:33 GMT
The issue of “sensitive” terminology is interesting and was much debated during my career in local government. In my lifetime we have moved from mentally defective to mentally sub-normal to mentally handicapped to mentally challenged to a person with learning difficulties. At each point, proponents of the new term have hoped to overcome negativity and to find a more acceptable expression. What’s in a word? one might ask. The answer is in the meaning behind the word. Society continues to denigrate sections of humanity and to discriminate against them and it is these behaviours that bring negativity to the otherwise neutral language used. So some of us try move onwards to more accepting attitudes by the adoption of “fresh” language. Sadly, it seldom works because negativity towards some of our fellow humans is deeply ingrained.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 8, 2020 22:33:32 GMT
On the topic of PC or "sensitive" language:
I have numerous non-Caucasian friends, others with disabilities, and those who are non-cisgender (now there's one for you!). Not one of them is coy about calling it what it is: "I'm a blackfella"; "I'm dark chocolate"; "I'm disabled / a crip"; even "I'm a tranny" – all very non-PC. One friend, who has cerebral palsy, even refers to himself as a "spastic" – which is about as un-PC as it gets in Oz.
It seems to me that it's white middle-class "normally abled" folk who develop and carry the hangup of mis-labelling; the people those labels refer to don't give one of Noël Coward's flying fornications (galloping mules notwithstanding).
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 9, 2020 6:59:31 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 9, 2020 10:17:04 GMT
Cisgender, as defined by Wordweb: "Of or relating to people whose gender identity is the same as their birth sex; not transgender". Non-cisgender would thus be not-not-transgender?
An interesting example of the continuing change in the acceptability of certain words can be found in the song, "The Sun Has Got His Hat On". The original 1932 version contains the line, "He's been tanning niggers out in Timbuktu", which was considered completely inoffensive at the time. By 1971 when a cover version was released, "niggers" had been changed to "negroes", and in a later version to "tourists". Stephen Fry has more recently suggested, "He's been roasting peanuts".
In 2014 a presenter on a UK local-radio station was sacked for playing the original version of the song, he not having realised that it included the offensive word.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 9, 2020 10:50:02 GMT
Twod: I really do think the labelling nonsense has gone too far. From the 70s and 80s activism where many battles were against labelling we've gone down the opposite route. Here are just a few such terms selected from a reference document I compiled a couple of years ago for PFLAG.
One aspect of the phenomenon that really annoys me is the now widely used LGBTIQA+, standing for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual Intersex Queer Asexual and the rest (the +). If someone asks me if I'm LGBT… my response is along the lines of "only G, and perhaps Q". I can't possibly be an L, I'm not bi, trans, inter, or asexual.
agender A person with no (or very little) connection to the traditional system of gender, no personal alignment with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or someone who sees themselves as existing without gender. Sometimes called gender neutrois, gender neutral, or genderless.
androgyne Non-binary gender identity associated with androgyny. Having a gender that is simultaneously masculine and feminine.
aromantic Experiencing little or no romantic attraction to others and/or having a lack of interest in romantic relationships/behaviour. Aromanticism exists on a continuum from people who experience no romantic attraction, or have any desire for romantic activities, to those who experience low levels, or romantic attraction only under specific conditions, and many of these different places on the continuum have their own identity labels.
bicurious A curiosity about having attraction to or sexual relations with people of the same gender/sex.
bigender (or for clarity: bi-gender, not big-ender) Having two gender identities, either simultaneously or varying between the two. The gender identities can be male, female, or non-binary identities.
cis / cisgender A description for a person whose gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex all align; describes someone who feels comfortable with the gender identity and gender expression expectations assigned to them based on their sex assigned at birth (e.g. man and assigned male at birth). A simple way to think about it is if a person is not transgender, they are cisgender. The word cisgender can also be shortened to cis.
▪ Cis is a Latin prefix that means “on the same side [as]” or “on this side [of]”.
▪ The opposite would be transgender.
demiromantic Little or no capacity to experience romantic attraction until a strong sexual or emotional connection is formed with another individual, often within a sexual relationship.
demisexual Little or no capacity to experience sexual attraction until a strong romantic or emotional connection is formed with another individual, often within a romantic relationship.
gender-fluid According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a person who does not identify with a single fixed gender; of or relating to a person having or expressing a fluid or unfixed gender identity. Gender fluid is a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is gender fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more man some days, and more woman other days.
gender neutral A person with no (or very little) connection to the traditional system of gender, no personal alignment with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or someone who sees themselves as existing without gender. Sometimes called agender, gender neutrois, or genderless.
gender non-conforming A broad term referring to people who do not behave in a way that conforms to the traditional expectations of their gender, or whose gender expression does not fit neatly into a category. Often abbreviated as GNC.
gender normative Someone whose gender presentation, whether by nature or by choice, aligns with society’s gender-based expectations. (Also referred to as genderstraight.)
greysexual A vague descriptor covering the spectrum from asexual all the way to fully sexual; usually employed by asexual / demisexual persons.
hir / ze Alternative pronouns that are gender neutral and preferred by some gender-variant persons. Pronounced /here/ and /zee/, they replace she/he and hers/his respectively. Alternatively some people who are not comfortable with or do not embrace he/she use the plural pronoun they/their as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.
intergender A person whose gender identity is between genders or a combination of genders.
metrosexual First used in 1994 by British journalist Mark Simpson, who coined the term to refer to an urban heterosexual male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends spends more time, energy, or money on his appearance and grooming and lifestyle than is considered gender normative.
This term can be perceived as derogatory because it reinforces stereotypes that all gay men are fashion conscious and materialistic.
Mx An honorific (e.g. Mr, Ms, Mrs, etc., pronounced /mix/) that is gender neutral. It is often the option of choice for folks who do not identify within the gender binary: Mx Smith is a great teacher.
pangender A person whose gender identity comprises all or many gender expressions.
pansexual A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions, not just people who fit into the standard gender binary (i.e. men and women). They may be sexually attracted to all or many gender expressions though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way, or to the same degree. A pansexual could be open to someone who is male, female, transgender, intersex, or agendered/genderqueer. Often shortened to pan.
PGPs Preferred gender pronouns. Often used during introductions, becoming more common in educational institutions. Many suggest removing the “preferred” because it indicates flexibility and/or the power for the speaker to decide which pronouns to use for someone else.
scoliosexual / skoliosexual Being primarily sexually, romantically, and/or emotionally attracted to some genderqueer, transgender, transsexual, and/or non-binary people. From ancient Greek skoliós = curved, bent.
third gender A term for a person who does not identify as either man or woman, but identifies with another gender. This gender category is used by societies that recognise three or more genders, both contemporary and historic, and is also a conceptual term meaning different things to different people who use it as a way to move beyond the gender binary. The term third is usually understood to mean “other”; some anthropologists and sociologists have described fourth, fifth, and “some” genders. The term can be traced back to the 1860s.
third sex Acknowledged/accepted in many ways by numerous cultures, evidenced by the following terms for “third-sex” members of a community: akava'ine; agi; aravani / aruvani; ashtime; badíng; baklâ; bantut; bayogin; bayot; berdache; binabae; māhū; fa'afafine; fakaleiti; jagappa; khanith; kinnar; lakin-on; mangaiko; mashoga; mux(h)e; omeggid; palao'ana; two-spirit; waria; whakawahine; X-gender.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 9, 2020 10:59:11 GMT
Cisgender, as defined by Wordweb: "Of or relating to people whose gender identity is the same as their birth sex; not transgender". Non-cisgender would thus be not-not-transgender? An interesting example of the continuing change in the acceptability of certain words can be found in the song, "The Sun Has Got His Hat On". The original 1932 version contains the line, "He's been tanning niggers out in Timbuktu", which was considered completely inoffensive at the time. By 1971 when a cover version was released, "niggers" had been changed to "negroes", and in a later version to "tourists". Stephen Fry has more recently suggested, "He's been roasting peanuts". In 2014 a presenter on a UK local-radio station was sacked for playing the original version of the song, he not having realised that it included the offensive word. I was presenting a radio show back in the 90s and inadvertently pressed the wrong track number on the CD player and broadcast a song that would never in a million permissive years be allowed on the airwaves. The lyrics included words such as c**s*cker, motherf*cker, and other choice profanities. Once I realised my mistake, it was too late to fix it – that might draw someone's attention to it, so I let it play through. I logged the incident in the station's records and mentioned it to the station manager the next day. He hadn't heard the song, and apparently no-one had lodged a complaint. It was a relief to know that, but hardly reassuring that anyone was even tuned in to my show. I wasn't sacked (I was a volunteer, as were all the station's workers). I took greater care with track selection afterward.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 9, 2020 23:24:15 GMT
Oh for a comma of direct address! Lewis Hamilton is reported to be donating US$500K to the Australian bushfire effort. In the BBC article Hamilton is quoted as saying: "I'm lucky enough to visit Australia often and I know first-hand how beautiful the country is. Keep fighting Australia." Who's fighting Australia? (Meanwhile, onya, Lewis!)
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