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Authors: Richard Glover
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their usage is a little more upbeat. Ask an American ‘How are you?’ and it’s seen as a cue to deliver some advertising copy: ‘You know what? I’m terrific. I’m awesome. I’m fantastic.’ The person saying this is often slipping in and out of a coma, or lying in the gutter having been bankrupted for the fourteenth time.
This is not a problem for their fellow Americans. They simply employ the National Linguistic Deflator to the sentence, dividing all positive sentiments by 230 per cent, multiplying all negative notions by the power of ten, thus concluding that the person is ‘as good as can be expected, considering’.
In Australia, it’s the opposite. The National Linguistic Inflator must be employed. Consider the following exchange:
‘How are you?’
‘Not bad. And you?’
‘Can’t complain.’
As is exceedingly obvious, the first person has just, minutes ago, won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his firstexperimental novel, while his friend has just made it into Who Weekly ’s Most Sexy Person Alive double issue, despite his work as a brain surgeon.
Of course, every community has its braggers and blowhards, but a true Australian discussion is like a perpetual round of misère, with the aim of losing every trick.
‘Your car’s looking good.’
‘Come off it, it’s full of dents and rust.’
‘I’ve got to sell mine, it’s so lousy.’
‘At least you’re free to sell. I still owe too much.’
‘Gee, were you able to get a loan? They turned me down.’
Kerry Packer, billionaire, has ‘a few bob’. Don Bradman, the world’s greatest cricketer, was ‘no slouch with the bat’. Meanwhile, someone truly incompetent is merely ‘a bit average’. In fact, Australia is the only country in which a really evil person is called ‘a bit of a bastard’, while your best friend is ‘a total bastard’.
At least we’ve got somewhere to go, linguistically speaking. In America, it’s as if they’ve given a score of ten out of ten to the first player in the competition. If you are awesome and fantastic while slipping in and out of the coma, what do you say on a really good day? ‘Actually, I’ve just won the Nobel Prize for Literature and been chosen as one of Who Weekly ’s Most Sexy People in the Universe. So I guess I feel even more awesome than I did when I was falling in and out of that coma back there.’
This may be why younger Americans have fallen right off the scale of exaggeration and had to circle around to start again on the other side. Something really good is now ‘sick’ or ‘wicked’. These words have been picked up by Australian teenagers, causing intergenerational bafflement, particularlyonce the attempt is made to translate it all back into Australian.
‘The film was really sick, Dad.’
‘It was sick? So, really bad, huh? So bad it was, like, a bit ordinary?’
‘No it wasn’t that bad. It was good. Really good.’
‘How good? So good it wasn’t that bad?’
‘Aw, no, probably not that good.’
If Australians had landed on the moon, the speech would have gone, ‘This is two small steps for man and a half-decent effort for mankind.’ Everyone would then apply the National Linguistic Inflator to the speech, multiply everything by 173 per cent and work out the bloke was actually saying the whole thing was awesome.
It’s then the country would stand to attention and shout as one towards the moon: ‘Mate, no one likes a bignoter,’ at which point the Aussie astronaut would stomp off and sulk, and we’d be forced to look to another language for an explanation.
Who knows? Maybe he was just a little Ungefickt zum Dienst .
I’m a little teapot
We’ve had the same metal teapot for fifteen years, but recently it has become too battered to use. I set out to buy another, searching the net for a retailer who stocks our brand. This is how I discover our model was recalled, back in 1995. Apparently, it leaks lead poison into the tea, in a way proved to
This is not a problem for their fellow Americans. They simply employ the National Linguistic Deflator to the sentence, dividing all positive sentiments by 230 per cent, multiplying all negative notions by the power of ten, thus concluding that the person is ‘as good as can be expected, considering’.
In Australia, it’s the opposite. The National Linguistic Inflator must be employed. Consider the following exchange:
‘How are you?’
‘Not bad. And you?’
‘Can’t complain.’
As is exceedingly obvious, the first person has just, minutes ago, won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his firstexperimental novel, while his friend has just made it into Who Weekly ’s Most Sexy Person Alive double issue, despite his work as a brain surgeon.
Of course, every community has its braggers and blowhards, but a true Australian discussion is like a perpetual round of misère, with the aim of losing every trick.
‘Your car’s looking good.’
‘Come off it, it’s full of dents and rust.’
‘I’ve got to sell mine, it’s so lousy.’
‘At least you’re free to sell. I still owe too much.’
‘Gee, were you able to get a loan? They turned me down.’
Kerry Packer, billionaire, has ‘a few bob’. Don Bradman, the world’s greatest cricketer, was ‘no slouch with the bat’. Meanwhile, someone truly incompetent is merely ‘a bit average’. In fact, Australia is the only country in which a really evil person is called ‘a bit of a bastard’, while your best friend is ‘a total bastard’.
At least we’ve got somewhere to go, linguistically speaking. In America, it’s as if they’ve given a score of ten out of ten to the first player in the competition. If you are awesome and fantastic while slipping in and out of the coma, what do you say on a really good day? ‘Actually, I’ve just won the Nobel Prize for Literature and been chosen as one of Who Weekly ’s Most Sexy People in the Universe. So I guess I feel even more awesome than I did when I was falling in and out of that coma back there.’
This may be why younger Americans have fallen right off the scale of exaggeration and had to circle around to start again on the other side. Something really good is now ‘sick’ or ‘wicked’. These words have been picked up by Australian teenagers, causing intergenerational bafflement, particularlyonce the attempt is made to translate it all back into Australian.
‘The film was really sick, Dad.’
‘It was sick? So, really bad, huh? So bad it was, like, a bit ordinary?’
‘No it wasn’t that bad. It was good. Really good.’
‘How good? So good it wasn’t that bad?’
‘Aw, no, probably not that good.’
If Australians had landed on the moon, the speech would have gone, ‘This is two small steps for man and a half-decent effort for mankind.’ Everyone would then apply the National Linguistic Inflator to the speech, multiply everything by 173 per cent and work out the bloke was actually saying the whole thing was awesome.
It’s then the country would stand to attention and shout as one towards the moon: ‘Mate, no one likes a bignoter,’ at which point the Aussie astronaut would stomp off and sulk, and we’d be forced to look to another language for an explanation.
Who knows? Maybe he was just a little Ungefickt zum Dienst .
I’m a little teapot
We’ve had the same metal teapot for fifteen years, but recently it has become too battered to use. I set out to buy another, searching the net for a retailer who stocks our brand. This is how I discover our model was recalled, back in 1995. Apparently, it leaks lead poison into the tea, in a way proved to
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