Do you know what a dag is? Or a bogan? Welcome to the world of Australian slang. I thought I’d better do a post on the various forms of slang that will litter my site like fragments of broken glass so that, if you’re not an Aussie yourself, you may have at least some idea of what I’m waffling on about.
You will also notice sometimes that I spell things differently than you do (especially if you’re from the USA). We tend to use the proper English spelling so you will see neighbour, favourite or humour not neighbor, favorite or humor. What do Americans have against the letter ‘U’. I’m complaining to Sesame Street first chance I get.
I can’t count the times I’ve written something, or spoken to someone from another country, without someone being totally perplexed at what I’ve said and asked for a “please explain?”.
Yes we speak English here – and very well I might say – but we have our own colloquiallisms which don’t seem to be understood by the average Yank (American), European or Asian. Every country has their own, but due to our over abundance of television shows from all over the world many standards from other countries have become well-known and frequently used by us. The same can’t really be said the other way around. The Poms (British) have a much better understanding of our slang and humour because we are such a young country and we were settled by convicts from England and Ireland anyway.
So where was I? Oh yeah, Aussie speak. And for you Americans, it’s pronounced Ozzie not Ossey as most of you frequently and incorrectly say it.
Dag: Well the true definition of a dag is not what we use it for. A ‘dag’ in its true definition is a matted piece of wool and poo from a sheep’s bum. Nice! But I’ve never really heard it used in its real context. To us, a dag is a person who either isn’t very fashionable or is a bit of a nerd. It’s not really an insult and can be used in so many ways. I would say I’m a bit of dag at the moment because I’m wearing my trackie daks (track suit pants) and ugg boot slippers (which has me teetering on the border of bogan land trying not to fall in the shallow end of their gene pool). If I do something silly it’s probably me just being a dag.
Bogan: This one has become part of every day speech to describe what the Yanks might call a redneck or trailer trash or the Poms might call a chav. The Aussie male of the species usually has a mullet hairdo, wears flannie (checked flanalette) shirts and talks about their cars or the footy (football) and hangs out in pubs. They often have names like Mick or Gazza or Wozza because Michael, Gary or Warren aren’t quite up to bogan name standards. The female of the species is usually easily identified by screeching at their children, wearing muffin top jeans and cut off singlet tops with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths with a baby on their hip. The go by the names of Shazza, Schappelle and Bindy. They often try to make themselves sound very chic by naming their children with what they think is clever spelling but is a form of illiteracy called stupidity. The children will bear monikers such as Destanee, Epponnee, Bah-Lee and Jaxon . Both male and female bogans drink mixer drinks in cans and wine coolers, cheap beer and chateau cardboard (casked wine), chain smoke endless cigarettes, seem to breed like rabbits and collect the dole.
Dole: Unemployment benefits or what the Americans call welfare. Dole-bludgers are people that couldn’t be bothered working…ever… and use their money to buy booze, cigarettes, drugs or feed their local pokies.
Pokies: Not they’re not jails. They’re poker (or slot) machines where dole bludgers, grannies and bogans sit like zombies feeding coins expecting that they’ll win enough money to buy them another carton of fags.
Fags: Yes, this word is also used in Australia as a term for gay people but also as a slang word for cigarettes.
Schmick: I was asked to explain this one very recently and only just discovered that it very much an Australian piece of slang. It pretty much means anything that’s ultra-cool. I used it to describe a website that I thought looked fabulous and was met with a ???? by the person I was speaking to who was from the US.
Arse: This isn’t purely Australian, it’s also very British. The Americans say ass we say arse. To us and ass is a donkey an arse is a bum.
Bum: We very rarely use this in the same context as Americans who use it to describe a homeless person or a dole-bludger. A bum is what you sit on, or spank, or what some might call their butt.
Pash: French kissing or a long passionate kiss. As in, last night I pashed a gorgeous guy. I wish!
Dickhead: An idiot or a term of self-deprecation. If someone is annoying you they are probably a dickhead. If you’ve done something silly, you could call yourself a dickhead or a dag. An example: last night I set the alarm for PM instead of AM and was late for work because my alarm didn’t go off, I’m such a dickhead. This happened to me this morning. Yes, I am a dickhead.
Fuckwit: A more extreme form of dickhead and was Americans would probably call a fucktard.
Nanna: Someone (usually a female) who is old. If I’m wearing my nanna pants you can bet they are big Bridget Jones type undies not g-strings.
Undies: Underpants, ’nuff said.
Thongs: This is where Americans and Australians really come unstuck. See picture above. Thongs in Australia are what the US would call flip-flops. What they call thongs, we call g-strings. So if I say I’m wearing thongs, please don’t picture me in skimpy underwear. You’ll go blind.
Barbie: No not the blonde weirdly proportioned doll. This is an Australian ritual of the barbecue where we cook snags (sausages) and steaks, drink beer and hang out with our mates.
Mate: A friend. “G’day mate” is about as Aussie a greeting as you can get. Although cabbies and bus drivers seem to think everyone is their mate. Leave Paris Hilton to have her BFFs, ours are out best mates.
Bloody: Light swear (cuss) word that pretty much means ‘very’ or ‘very much’. Used by everyone in any context you could imagine. Examples: He’s a bloody dickhead, that was a bloody good beer mate or bloody hell! (an exclamation that covers every scenario). I use this word a lot so get used to it. It’s bloody handy.
ADDITIONS. Since reading a couple of comments I’ve decided I had to add a couple more.
Wanker: The actual meaning is ‘one who masturbates’ but as that would pretty much describe everyone on the planet it’s pretty much used as an insult for someone who is worse than a dickhead but not as bad as a fuckwit.
Pissed: Now I know in the USA it’s a term used when you’re angry but here you are not just ‘pissed’, you are ‘pissed off’. In Australia, if you’re pissed you are leglessly drunk. Going out with your mates and getting pissed is a national pastime – even more so if you’re at a barbie or you’re a bogan.
Now this is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a few things that I will probably write at some stage so now you have something to refer back to instead of wondering what the hell I just said. If you have any that you’ve heard that you’d like explained, throw it my way and I’ll decipher it for you. Please feel free to add your own in.
But take it from me, there a very few of us that speak like Crocodile Dundee. When we saw the overseas tourism ads to ‘throw a shrimp on the barbie’ we all fell about laughing. A shrimp is either a very fancy name for prawns and is usually only used in restaurants or it’s a very small person. I’m only little so I’d be considered a shrimp. Please don’t throw me on any hot burning objects.
PS: Feel free to visit my other sites Vampire Daze and Book Review Babes. I may be a dag but I need a good ego stroking every now and then 
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