Sunday, May 29, 2005

language warning

I've been here a little over a year now and already I can feel the Ockerisms settling into my speech. God help me - I'm going native.

I'm all 'mate' and 'no worries' all the time, although I've yet to sink to the level of the 'giving me the shits'. Or 'sheets' rather. For all that the Aussies tell us to buy a vowel (and, let's face it, fair cop), at the very least they could buy a vowel other than an 'e'.

It's been ages since I've said 'bro' or 'choice', and 'sweet' is a little too pan-Antipodean to be NZ definitive.

I was in a bookshop the other day and a couple of (extremely!) large brown guys sidled past and as I got out of their way they said "Cher, bro" and "Kia ora" which brought an instant grin to my face. Us Kiwis aren't all that uncommon here but it's nice to encounter language that could be straight from Rotovegas.

Anyway, I'm making it my mission this week to amuse everyone at the office by overdoing the Nu Zullund uckzent and calling everyone 'bro' - gender regardless. See how long it lasts before I get laughed out of the building.

But in a totally unrelated 'I've-been-wondering' aside - who decided on the width of toilet paper? It's all the same width! Is this an issue to people with other-than-normal-sized/shaped butt cracks?

And can anyone explain to me why these things even occur to me?

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