Generally speaking I think Aussies and Brits understand each other pretty well (unlike Americans, from whom we are definitely divided by a common language); generally speaking we do ‘speak the same language’, which means we use similar words to mean similar things, and through the years we (that’s us Brits) have absorbed quite a few Aussie expressions into our language – such as ‘whinge’, ‘no worries’, ‘a big ask’, not to mention (because it is such a horrible word, and to be honest I’m not totally sure it is an Aussie word but I certainly heard it here first, and it sounds Aussie, in meaning at least) ‘wuss’; and the other day I heard someone on the radio in England using the word ‘shonky’ – and for all I know Aussies have absorbed some expressions from us, but I wouldn’t necessarily know what they were. (‘Gobsmacked’ I think is one.) Nonetheless as a new Aussie citizen I have found myself coming up against the odd language difficulty.
When I first arrived in Australia in my previous incarnation 39 years ago I presented to my cousin (a different one), with whom I was staying, by way of a thank-you, a bunch of gladioli, at the sight of which she burst out laughing. I hadn’t realised of course that as long ago as 1968 Dame Edna (aka Barry Humphries) as part of his/her stage act habitually showered the audience with ‘gladdies’, thereby transforming them, in Australia at least, into a laughing stock.
The other day I was discussing the business of internet access with Libby and her (Australian) boyfriend. In London recently I was introduced for the first time to wireless internet, otherwise known as ‘wi-fi’ (I’m not sure what the ‘fi’ stands for – ‘fidelity’??). I discovered, through a fair amount of trial and error, that by acquiring a wireless adaptor and simply plugging it into my laptop I could log onto the internet using a neighbour’s unencrypted wi-fi signal. This was wonderful, because I use the internet a lot.
I tried doing the same here but it didn’t work. So I told Libby I needed to find a computer shop so I could buy a wireless router, at which point both she and her friend burst out laughing.
Now I do know this: the word ‘root’ in Australia means the same as ‘rut’ (and is quite probably a corruption of it, or vice versa), and is widely used to mean as much. So for example, an Aussie joke that is meaningless anywhere else is the definition of a one-night stand as a ‘wombat’, who ‘eats roots and leaves’. You get the picture?
So a wireless router, a perfectly harmless expression in England, is known here as a ‘rowter’, pronounced in the American way with an ‘ow’ in the middle. When I pointed out to my friends here that that made no sense, since the word router has its roots (excuse the pun) in the word ‘route’ to mean a ‘way’, and Aussies don’t talk about the ‘rowt’ from Sydney to Melbourne for instance, as Americans would, I was told that is how it is pronounced the world over (except England), so what’s my problem?
My problem was that I could no more go into a shop here and ask for a ‘wireless rowter’ than I could row across the Atlantic. Perhaps it’s because ever since I became an Australian citizen I perversely feel myself to be more British than I did before. So I found myself having to go into the shop and ask for an item I was unable to actually mention, which meant I was reduced to asking for ‘something that will enable me to pick up a wireless signal’, which in turn led me down several false and confusing alleys until I finally swallowed hard and asked to see wireless routers (English pronunciation), at which the young salesman had the decency not to laugh out loud.
It may be a small thing, but I don’t think Aussies realise how American they have become. Before you know it they’ll be talking about ‘pants’ rather than trousers and ‘lines’ instead of queues. (Come to think of it they already do.)
But rather more importantly, how far am I prepared to go, now I am a full-blooded Australian citizen, to prove I am a true-blue, dinky-die Aussie (and a Sheila to boot)? (And I see my computer has automatically put a capital ‘S’ on the front of that word, so that’s something else to contend with.)
