Our Aussie Blog

Just something a little different in this Learn the Lingo post, these are the names we call people or how they are perceived to us in Australia.

• Ankle biter – toddler or small child
• Bloke – a man or guy
• Bludger – generally someone who relies on other people to do things for them; lazy
• Bogan – person with little pride in their appearance
• Bushie – Someone who lives in the bush
• Cobber – a friend
• Dag – a funny person or a bit of a goof
• Dill – an idiot – but not meant in a nasty way
• Dipstick – an idiot or loser
• Dole bludger – someone who is on welfare and doing nothing to change it
• Drongo – stupid person
• Dropkick – an idiot or loser
• Fruit loop – fool
• Galah – fool or silly person
• Hoon – refers to a hooligan, especially driving unsafely, too fast, wrecklessly
• Mate – a friend, and often something to call a person when you can’t remember their name!
• Mongrel – despicable person
• Mug –  gullible person or friendly insult
• Nipper – young surf lifesaver
• No-hoper – someone who will never do well.
• Ocker – an unsophisticated person
• Oldies – parents
• Postie – postman or mailman
• Rellie or relo – a relative
• Sheila – a woman (though rarely used in Australia except if it’s someone’s actual name)
• Sook – cry baby
• Stickybeak – a nosy person
• Tall poppies – someone successful
• True blue – patriotic
• Vego – a vegetarian
• Yobbo – an uncouth person

I’m definitely a dag at times, and always a good mate!

I just wanted to share a picture taken by one of our visitors of a real Australian road sign designed to protect the native animals from cars. Isn’t it sweet?

At Australian Native T-Shirts, we carry a lot of native Australian animal road sign gifts – take a look.

Learn some Aussie slang terms to help you speak ‘Orstralian in no time. I hope you have fun with these:

• Avo or avos – Avocados
• Bikkie – a biscuit or cookie
• Chewie – chewing gum
• Chokkie – chocolate 
• Fairy floss – cotton candy or candy floss
• Flake – shark meat usually bought at a fish and chip shop
• Icy pole, ice block – Popsicle or lollypop
• Mystery bag – often refers to a sausage
• Sanger – a sandwich
• Tucker – food!
• Veges – vegetables

So, let’s try and put that lot into a few words….

I was starving so I spat my chewie out and had a bikkie but I was still hungry. I had some left over chokkie so wolfed that down followed by some fairy floss I got at the local show on the weekend. I didn’t want to have a sanger as I’d had one at lunch! Still hungry after that, so I got a piece of flake from the fish and chip shop, cooked up a mystery bag and some veges and threw some avo on top. Talk about great tucker! Then to finish off, I had an icy pole.

Haha we tried! It’s not easy “trying” to speak the lingo even as a native without totally confusing you with other words we could throw in.

Cooking Time for This Yummy Aussie Treat is approx. 30 Minutes with 15 Minutes Prep Time.

Main Ingredients (for lamingtons that serve 15)

Melted butter to grease the pan

75g (1/2 cup) self-raising flour

75g (1/2 cup) plain flour

70g (1/2 cup) cornflour

6 eggs at room temperature

215g (1 cup) caster sugar

1 tablespoon boiling water

170g (2 cups) desiccated coconut

Chocolate Icing Ingredients

300g (2 cups) icing sugar mixture

35g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder

60ml (1/4 cup) milk

60ml (1/4 cup) boiling water

Cooking Method

Preheat your oven to 160°C. Brush a 20 x 30cm lamington pan with melted butter to lightly grease. Line the base and sides of the tray with nonstick baking paper, allowing it to overhang a little.

Sift the combined flours together into a large bowl – repeat this twice.

Use an electric beater to whisk the eggs in a large, dry bowl until thick and pale. Gradually add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking well each time until mixture is thick and sugar dissolves.

Sift the combined flours over the egg mixture. Pour the boiling water down the side of the bowl and use a large metal spoon to gently fold until just combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface.

Bake in your oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn the cake onto a wire rack, cover with a clean tea towel and set it aside overnight to cool.

Trim the edges off the cake and cut it into 15 squares.

To make the chocolate icing, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a medium bowl. Add the milk and water and stir until it’s smooth.

Spread the desiccated coconut over a plate. Use two forks to dip one cake square into the warm icing to evenly coat and then allow any excess icing to drip off. Use your fingers to roll the cake in the coconut to evenly coat, then place on a wire rack.

Repeat this method with the remaining cake squares in the icing and coconut and then set aside for 1 hour or until the icing sets.

Ingredients:

125g Flour
150g Sugar
1 Cup Coconut
1 Cup Rolled Oats
100g Butter
1 Tbsp. Golden Syrup
1/2 tsp. Bicarb Soda
2 Tbsp. Boiling Water

Method:

Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats. Melt butter and golden syrup, dissolve Bicarb Soda in the boiling water and add to butter and golden syrup.

Make a well in the centre of the flour, stir in liquid.

Place in spoonfuls on greased trays and bake 15 to 20 mins at 180°C

A real favourite and probably our most known song outside of Australia.

WALTZING MATILDA
A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

Oh! There once was a swagman camped in a Billabong
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree;
And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda my darling,
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag –
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the water-hole,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker-bag,
‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’

Down came the Squatter a-riding his thoroughbred;
Down came Policemen – one, two, and three.
‘Whose is the jumbuck you’ve got in the tucker-bag?
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’

But the swagman, he up and he jumped in the water-hole,
Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree;
And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’

We have Australian made pewter belt buckles depicting a scene from Waltzing Matilda, view them here.

One of the most unique native animals from Australia is the platypus and here we have a list of fun and informative facts about the platypus – we hope you find them interesting.

1. The platypus is one of the few venomous mammals.
2. It’s also a monotreme which means it lays eggs when producing it’s offspring.
3. The male platypus has a spur on it’s hind legs which contains venom capable of causing severe pain to humans. The female has a spur but it does not produce venom.
4. The platypus has been used as a mascot at sporting events and also appears on the 20c coin in Australia. The platypus was one of the mascots at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in Australia along with an echidna and kookaburra.
5. In the past, the platypus was hunted for it’s fur but that stopped in the 20th century.
6. There is only one species of platypus but it was called many things in the past by British settlers including: watermole, duckbill, duckmole. Often it’s referred to as the duck-billed platypus.
7. The platypus is covered in dense brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air and keeps the animal warm.
8. The platypus has webbed feet (to aid with swimming) and a bill that resembles a duck bill.
9. The platypus uses it’s tail for storage of fat reserves and the weight of the animal can be between 700 grams to 2.4kg – quite a variation in size.
10. It’s semi-aquatic and inhabits small streams and rivers over a wide distance from Tasmania to Qld – it’s actual distribution is not fully known.
11. When the first settlers found the platypus and sent sketches and a pelt to scientists back in Britain they thought it must be a hoax or a mocked up animal – they even checked whether several other animals had been stitched together to make it.
12. Natural predators of the platypus include snakes, crocodiles, water rats, goannas, hawks, owls and eagles.
13. The platypus is often nocturnal, but not always, if the sky is overcast they may come out during the day – they seem to be shy creatures.
14. It was once said that the platypus is proof that God has a sense of humour.

For all of the products we offer featuring this native Australian animal, click here.

Totally tongue-in-cheek Aussie humour – here are 10 ways to tell if you’re Australian with brief explanations for our visitors from overseas – see if any apply to you!

You know you’re Australian when: 

1. You still think of Kylie Minogue as “That girl from Neighbours” (Long-running Australian TV Soap).
2. You know that many people have the impression that everyone in Australia is just like Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee (Crikey, we’re not quite like that, you know!).
3. You know that Sydney 2000 was one of our proudest moments in history – we rock! (The Sydney Olympics was a wonderful event for all Australians – we’re very proud!).
4. One Simple Word: Skippy (the smartest TV kangaroo to ever live, 6 or 7 times!).
5. You know that there is a universal place called “woop woop” located in the middle of nowhere… no matter where you actually are (if someone lives out of the main cities, it’s generally said that they live out in “woop woop”).
6. You have some time in your life slept with Aeroguard on in the summer – maybe even used it as perfume (Aeroguard is bug spray you can spray or roll on to your skin, very useful for keeping the “mozzies” away).
7. You say “no worries” quite often, whether you realise it or not (no worries is our version of “not a problem”).
8. You’ve ordered a piece of meat the size of your head and only paid $15.00 for it at your local RSL club (Returned Servicemen’s Leagues Clubs – a great place to eat and have a few drinks at a great price!).
9. You think footballers dressing up in drag on TV is funny (seems to be a very popular activity among our “football” players, that is, Rugby League and AFL, NOT Soccer).
10. You believe that “stubbies” can either be worn or drunk (a small bottle of beer is a stubby, as are short mens shorts!).

We’re as Aussie as you get round here mate, because every one of these is familiar to us – how about you??

Meet Some Australians...
Here is a delightful list of all the lovely animals in Australia that can kill, harm, scare, annoy or “just” give you lots and lots of pain – it’ll certainly make you want to visit our shores (with body armour and jungle strength bug spray on!).

• Redback Spider
• Funnel Web Spider
• Scorpions
• Centipedes
• Scrub Ticks
• Mosquitoes
• March Flies
• Sand Flies
• Bull Ants
• Red Belly Black Snakes
• Taipans
• Brown Snakes
• Tiger Snakes
• Death Adders
• Crocodiles
• Great White Sharks
• Grey Nurse Sharks
• Tiger Sharks
• Hammerhead Sharks
• Wobbegongs
• Stingrays
• Stonefish
• Rock Cod
• Fire Cod
• Blue Rings
• Sea Wasps
• Blue Bottles
• Sea Snakes

Check out our Australian animal t-shirts range here.