The day after Australia Day, the The Age newspaper had an article about phrases which are particular to Australian English, apparently. Suppose looking at oneself from outside the fishbowl is meritous on the day after Australia Day.

I was surprised to read that some of the list below were exclusive to Strine. I’m not sure of their source, and probably have some reason to be suspicious, given they cite Fiona Cox (sic) on phonetic features of Strine. The article mentions an edition of The Australian National Dictionary, due to be published late 2009, but doesn’t state that this list comes from that volume.

Anyhoo, here’s the ‘data’:

Public servant (c.f. civil servant elsewhere, the first public servants were convicts)
Light globe (all the other Englishes only have light bulb)
Economic Rationalism (The UK had Thatcherism and the US had Reganism)
Enterprise bargaining (collective industrial relations negotiations)
Salary sacrifice (apportioning part of one’s salary to be received as car/credit ard/mortgage payments etc, so as to reduce the gross amount of taxable income)
Streaker’s defence (It seemed like a good idea at the time (I had to google this cos I had no idea what it meant!))
Minimum chips (the minimum serve of chips one can order at a takeaway fish-and-chip/BBQ chicken shop, mmm, survived on these at boarding school!)
Grey Nomad (retired person who travels extensively)
Flat white (a latte served in a cup and saucer, same size as a cappuccino cup, not one of those soup-bowl sized cups kiwis serve their lattes in)
Short black (a single-shot espresso)
Scrunchie (a fabric-covered elastic hair tie)
Silver beet (apparently called a Swiss chard in other Englishes)
I didn’t come down in the last shower (Don’t take me for a fool, for the non-SAE readers.)

I wonder about a few of these – and would welcome some input from speakers of other English dialects. Does NZ English share any of these with us, such as light globe and economic rationalism (was Rogernomics economic rationalism, or something all unto itself?)?

Does the exclusivity of enterprise bargaining and salary sacrifice entail that these are not practised elsewhere, or just not labelled the same? Peter Austin has written about the cross-dialectal minefield that is industrial relations.

I’m sure I’ve heard the word scrunchie around the English-speaking world, not least in an episode of Sex and the City - is this possibly even an Aussie export? Maybe it’s wiser to trace the spread of the item itself – does it have alternative names?

Are we really the only nation to refer to retired travellers as grey nomads? Are the less-positively-evaluated terms (e.g. SAD ‘See Australia and Die) also exclusive? Speakers of other dialects: bring forth your terms!

I didn’t come down in the last shower gave me a bit of a giggle: surely the impact of that one is wearing off given the long period between showers in drought-ridden south-eastern Oz!