Delighting in language barriers
THERE is something deliciously delightful about baffling your grandchildren with old sayings and songs that entertained and amused you as a kid.
For instance, the looks on their faces as you burst into song with, Got a Zac (in the back of me pocket) is truly something to behold.
Made famous by New Zealand singer-songwriter Johnny Devlin in 1960, the lyrics, while popular back then might, just as well, have been written in a foreign language three generations on.
While the 14-year-old cringed with embarrassment, the others shook their heads in disbelief.
As for the littlest fellow, he just giggled and blocked his ears.
The lyrics, for those not old enough to remember, go like this:
Got a zac in the back of me pocket,
Of me new second-hand pair of jeans
Along with me two bob watch and me nip of scotch
And me paper bag full of mandarins.
The most inquisitive mind in the group, as per
Clive Savage, Highton usual, had some questions.
“Who’s Zac, Nan?”
“It’s slang for old money, a sixpence or five cents.”
“How can you have a new second-hand pair of jeans?”
“Well if you bought them from an op shop, they’d be second-hand to somebody but they’d still be new to you.”
“What’s a two bob watch?” “A very poor quality one.” “How would you fit a paper bag full of mandarins in your back pocket?”
“Don’t ask silly questions.” Unfortunately (or fortunately), I never bothered to learn the remaining verses, otherwise I’d have been in for further interrogation and I was already starting to wilt under the pressure.
But it also struck me as curious that whenever we are asked to clarify a particular saying, we generally finish up making a dog’s breakfast out of it.
For instance, most Aussies know what the saying, “a few stubbies short of a six pack” means, but instead of giving a proper explanation, we tend to dance around it like a punch-drunk prize fighter. In fact, the explanation usually goes something like this.
“Well, it means they are, ‘not the full quid’, ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed, ‘a bit of a drongo’ or ‘a galah’,” none of which answers the question.
Why do we do this?
Could it be that Aussies, by nature, are a fairly sympathetic lot and the use of humoristic slang helps soften the blow of something that might otherwise cause offence? Because, let’s face it, calling someone a “bit of a turkey” sounds a whole lot kinder than cutting to the chase and calling them an outright idiot.
Many of our most popular sayings can also create confusion for the uninitiated.
For instance, “fair crack of the whip” doesn’t mean that you’re capable of slicing off the hairs protruding from a farmer’s ears from 20m with your stock whip.
Just as “having a shocker” has nothing to do with you lighting up like a Christmas tree during a brief encounter with a dodgy power socket.
Ingrained in our psyche are
INGRAINED IN OUR PSYCHE ARE WORDS SUCH AS BANANA BENDERS, COCKIES, SANDGROPERS AND CROW EATERS, SMOKO, GARBO, BOTTLE’O, ARVO AND ‘AV A GO, YA MUG!’
words such as banana benders, cockies, sandgropers and crow eaters, smoko, garbo, bottle’o, arvo and ‘av a go, ya mug!’
Like so many of my vintage, having grown up in the thick of this uniquely Australian way of conversing, one does feel a certain responsibility to pass on, at least some of it, to the grandkids.
And their response to that? “OK, just as long as you don’t start singing!”
“OK!”
“There’s a zac in the back … ” “Noooooo!”
1610
Francois Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, assassinates France’s King Henry IV, who gave a measure of religious freedom to Protestants. 1796
English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful smallpox vaccination to eight-year-old James Phipps, in Berkeley village, Gloucestershire.
1798
Preachers from the London Missionary Society, who were besieged by hostile natives in Tahiti, find refuge in Sydney, arriving aboard the leaky Nautilus.
1943
A Japanese submarine torpedoes the hospital ship Centaur off Cape Moreton, Queensland. It sinks in three minutes. It was en route to the war zone and carrying no patients. Only 64 of the 332 on board survive.
1955
The Warsaw Pact is signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union.
1964
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Egypt’s Gamal Nasser open the first stage of the $1 billion Aswan High Dam project in Egypt. 1973
Skylab, the first US space station, is launched at Cape Kennedy. Its solar energy panels fail to open, delaying the launch of its crew. 1986
Federal Treasurer Paul Keating warns on Sydney radio that large trade deficits could make Australia a ”banana republic’’. The dollar then plunges.
1987
Actor Rita Hayworth (pictured), 68, dies in New York.
1998
Singer Frank Sinatra dies aged 82.
The last episode of the television situation comedy Seinfeld aired; ostensibly a show about nothing, it was a landmark of American popular culture.
1998