Australia Day 2017 – arse with an ‘r’

If you have a few minutes to waste today, Australia Day, the following words of questionable substance may be helpful……

“Zzeeeeebra”, said the boy to John Laws. I don’t remember the topic that produced the word zebra, though I do recall the pronunciation of the Z. It  was not as in zed, bed, red, fled or wed, but was zzzeeeeeee as in tree, free, three, thee, tee-hee.

This was a month or two ago, driving, when a mum called the John Laws Show (talk back radio) and talked briefly to Mr Laws before passing the phone to her young son 12 or 13 years of age.

“It’s ZED not ZEEEE!” yelled I to no-one; “this is ‘straya’ not America”. Other listeners probably reacted similarly as did John Laws who, in a pleasant manner, promptly mentioned how Aussie’s pronounce the letter Z. The young guy was fine with the correction but seemingly oblivious to his Aussie faux pas. I wonder of his mum’s thoughts (nothing said) and if he changed his zeeees to zeds after that day?

I also wonder about the three (3) R’s at school. Have our teachers lost the battle? Do they start lessons with “I want you all to open your Facebooks to Chapter 3, Section 2 – Arse Vs Ass”. Will Aussie kids grow to spell and speak American?

Ubiquitous on-screen, a visual depository for language degenerated via the keyboard, are such gems as #kickass, #badass and #lmao. Now #lmao and others of ilk, being time and text saving acronyms rarely used in real time face to face conversation, have paved the way for naughty words with immunity. Additionally and curiously, a lot of Aussies use American #versions and look very un-dudey Aussies doing so.

The following may help undo what the un-dudes do. I’ll be brief, or not brief.

Arse or Ass?

Our language in Oz is Australian English, in America it’s American English.

We say ARSE with an R. Remember I mentioned the three (3) R’s? Well this is where we use one of them. It’s ARSE, ARSE, ARSE. The R’s give ARSE a little class.

We don’t say ASS here. Americans say Ass there. Here an ass (spelled ASS) or donkey is a domestic critter related to the horse family who get together and produce a mule. An arse (spelled ARSE) is that bit of body we carry around and which nearly always points to the ground. An ASS and ARSE are not the same, they are not interchangeable, they are different. Maybe it’s worth knowing that an ASS might ARSE about in a grassy field. Maybe not.

For non-believers, substitute DONKEY for ASS and we get:   #kick donkey or #bad donkey. Sounds a little #sad donkey doesn’t it? What about #fat donkey, #big donkey, #tight donkey, #kissmy donkey? If you’re Aussie it’s ARSE.

LMAO

This one is uni-bummed due to only the letter A being shown. Users don’t have to specify Australian or American version. You may want to though, once you subconsciously slip donkey into the A slot. Laugh my donkey off. A bit funny. Incidently and by the way, whatever happened to LMHO, as in laugh my head off? Who replaced the Head with an Arse?

I do have an issue with the LMAO acronym though when it expands to LMFAO. I generally stop reading after this one appears. There is plenty of reading matter elsewhere that doesn’t need  the F word to get by.

It occurred to me though, that perhaps I’m a little hasty here. Perhaps the writer wasn’t using the screen to show they know a grubby swear word. Perhaps the F represents an adjective to the A for Arse component of the acronym. Eg……

LMFAO could contain;   FabulousArse, FlabbyArse, FrozenArse, FatArse, FantasticArse.

It seems arse and donkey both work with these adjectives but not the grubby (F) word.

There are more, but I’m done.

Word for today;      Arse   – a crude, rude and vulgar noun or verb

More to come;    same blog time, same blog channel