Australians say "banana" with a similar pronunciation to other English speakers (buh-NAH-nuh), stressing the middle syllable, but they often shorten it to "nana", a common affectionate or casual term that originated in Australia and is now widely used, even by official banana marketing.
If you cast your minds back, you may remember calling the humble banana a nana as a child. Originally an Australian toddler's word, dating back to the 1890s, this is now a very common term. So common in fact, that Australian Bananas uses it as well.
Another classic case of Australians shortening everything. Meaning 'thank you', ta is usually used for the times when you are in a rush or want to send a quick text to show your appreciation for something.
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit—botanically a berry—produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing them from dessert bananas.
What does 🍌 mean? 🍌 can be sexual slang (referring to male genitalia) or drug slang (referring to prescription pills, drugs in general, or oxycodone).
Woop Woop is used to refer to a place in the middle of nowhere. People use it to signify that a location is far away, unfamiliar to them, and difficult to get to.
The terms pommy, pommie, and pom used in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand usually denote a British person. Newspapers in Australia were using the term by 1912, with it appearing first in Western Australia, and was said to be short for pomegranate, with the terms "jimmy" and "jimmigrant" also in use.
Australians say hello informally with "G'day," "Hi," "Hey," or "How ya goin'?" (meaning "How are you doing?"). "Mate" is a common term of address for friends or even strangers, used with "G'day" or as a standalone greeting. While "G'day" is classic, more common modern greetings in cities are "Hey, how's it going?" or just "Hi," often not expecting a detailed answer.
"Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy, Oi Oi Oi" (often written as "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi") is a patriotic Australian sports chant, a rallying cry of national pride, originating from older British cheers like "Oggy Oggy Oggy," with "Aussie" being slang for Australian, and "Oi" functioning as an emphatic interjection, similar to "Hey!" or "Go!". It's used at sporting events, sometimes considered a bit cheesy or "cringey" by some Australians, but generally seen as an inclusive way to support national teams.
It is pronounced one letter at a time, though the band are colloquially known as Acca Dacca in Australia. The AC/DC band name is stylised with a lightning bolt separating the AC from DC and has been used on all studio albums, except the international version of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
Irish immigrants arriving in Australia looking for labour gained a reputation as heavy drinkers and fighters, with 'blue' being local slang for a fight. The term evolved to come to mean a redheaded Irishman.
The most Australian thing to say often involves casual abbreviations, laid-back optimism like "She'll be right" or "No worries," and unique slang for everyday items, such as "Arvo" (afternoon) or "Barbie" (barbecue), often delivered with "mate," making phrases like "G'day, mate, chuck us a coldie at the barbie this arvo?" quintessentially Aussie.
Australians use a couple of other colloquial words for a hen's egg. The Australian English word googie or goog is an informal term that dates from the 1880s. It derives from British dialect goggy, a child's word for an egg. A closer parallel to the jocular bum nut, however, is the word cackleberry.
Common Australian slang for a girl includes "Sheila" (older, sometimes dated or slightly derogatory), "chick," or just using general terms like "mate," "gal," or "lass," with context and tone being important, but "girl" is still widely used; some slang, like "moll," can refer to a girlfriend or a promiscuous woman, while "bogan" describes an unsophisticated person.
Today the use of pom and pommy to refer to an English person is common and widespread. These words can be used with good humour or in a derogatory way, but at the core they still imply a degree of 'us and them' mentality. The term whingeing pom, first recorded in 1962, embodies this.
The birds have also come to be regarded as a problem species in Victoria as a result of their scavenging activities, scattering rubbish from tips and bins in the process, and earning the widespread nickname "bin chicken". They are even known to snatch sandwiches from picnickers.
"Hoo-ha" (or hoo-hah) slang means a fuss, commotion, or uproar, often about something unimportant, but it can also euphemistically refer to genitalia, especially in more vulgar slang contexts. It can also be an exclamation of surprise or excitement, or even describe a laugh or chortle.
In this mini episode of Aussie English I explain the expressing “Far Out” which is often used as a way of expression surprise or that you are impressed by something. Improve your listening skills today – listen, play, & pause this episode – and start speaking like a native English speaker!
Sometimes "Gertie Gitana" (a music hall entertainer) was substituted for the refrain, leading to "Gertie" becoming Cockney rhyming slang for banana the usage of which continues to the modern day.