Oz Speak: Re-learning English before traveling to Australia

I am not a linguist by any stretch of the imgination. Still, I try my best to learn at least a few words of the local language whenever I visit a non English-speaking country.

In fact, I can competently utter a few words in such obscure (and, for me, difficult) languages as Urdu, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, Farsi, Indonesian, and even Arabic.

Each time I make the effort with a speaker from any relevant country, I am awarded with a smile and sometimes even a hearty laugh -- which could be a reaction to my untrained pronunciation.

No matter.

I do my best to speak the local lingo, even if I don't actually have my new friends at "hello."

However, in the English-speaking world, I like to think I can get much farther speaking the language I was taught from the time I was born.

Declaration: This does not mean that I never make a mistake.

Take what happened on a trip to Australia a couple of years ago.

I was enjoying a few unexpected days off from work duties when a few of my Australian colleagues suggested a short overnight trip from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. Because I was to spend that afternoon with an old friend, I asked if I could take Billy along on the journey.

My Aussie colleagues looked at me strangely but told me that if that's what I wanted to do it was fine with them.

I couldn't understand what they would have against Billy, a person not one of them had met. Then they met him. After introductions were made, all of those jovial Australians laughed in unison.

One explained, "We thought you wanted to bring along something so you could make tea in the wilderness. In our country, a 'billy' is not necessarily a person but rather a metal can used to heat liquid over an open fire."

It took me a second, but then I understood. They thought I thought we were going up to the mountains to rough it instead of what we were really going to do---to enjoy a grand meal in an upscale restaurant and to spend a restful night in a fancy inn.

And, because of where they thought I thought we were going, they surmised that I wanted to offer the grand gesture of making tea over the campfire when all I really wanted to do was to take along my good friend Billy.

Boy was that confusing.

So are other terms Australians use on a regular basis, especially if you are unfamiliar. Consider the following:

+ In Oz, a "boomer" is not someone born in the decade after World War II ended, but rather a large, male kangaroo.

+ To "bucket" in Australia is tantamount to what some Americans consider dumping on a certain person So, if you bucket someone in, say Melbourne or Canberra, you blame that person for practically everything and anything that happens.

+ To "bung" means to throw as in "I think I'll bung another steak on the barbie." The "barbie" is the barbecue.

+ Officially, a "dilly-bag" is a type of woven purse used by Aboriginal women but commonly, this word is used by many other women when describing a small bag of any kind.

+ An "earbasher' means like it sounds: Someone who won't shut up to the point where he or she becomes a bore.

+ A "jackeroo" is a male ranch hand and a "jilleroo" is a female ranch hand.

+ A "kylie" is the Aboriginal word for "boomerang."

+ A "ripper" is a bad person, a "roughie" is a cheater and a "sticky beak" is a nosy person.

+ And finally, when someone in Australia says they are going on a "walkabout", they mean they are going to wander around, usually in the countryside. I like that idea and take walkabouts whenever I can while visiting this enchanting land Down Under.

NOTE: This is by far only a small part of the Australian-American dictionary.  Please feel free to add or amend in the comment area below.

Following are some other travel etiquette articles that may pique your interest:

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in Russia

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in China

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in Spain

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in Iceland

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in India

Culturally correct:  How to behave like a local in Peru

Culturally correct: How to behave like a local in France

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