mating season

i did it. i can't say i'm proud of myself. i just couldn't resist the pressure any longer. call me weak, call me pathetic, call me traitorous. but i couldn't help myself.

i said "mate."

out loud. to another person. in public. oh dear- this doesn't look good.

when my friend eric returned home from a semester in wales with a serious case of the madonnas, saying "brilliant!" instead of "great" and "mobile" instead of "cell phone," i was among the first to chuckle. brilliant? who says brilliant? you're canadian, remember? those were my thought then. but now- let me say now, to the universe and all who are listening, that i owe eric an apology. because i've mated. and i understand his predicament.

people tend to pick up expressions from friends. families have their own personal lexicons that affect the way you speak, or at least mine does, and you certainly can't watch too many episodes of 'friends' before chandler's inflection starts to creep into your own voice. could you be any other way? so imagine that you're faced with a continual barrage of voices, day in and day out, all heavily accented and peppered with a slang that is almost indecipherable. imagine that every time you say "thank you" it sounds as though it has too many syllables and that it's actually rude to say "what's up?" now try to stand there and not pick up a phrase or two, a slightly new direction on certain vowels, a disappearance of any medial r. suddenly melbourne is melboune and you're saying "ta" when a store clerk hands your your change. if a hundred people a day ask you "how you going?" it's only a matter of time before you, too, won't care how people are doing and would rather know how they are going. one letter- assimilation is that easy.

the slang of sydney is almost an entirely different language. greetings, pleasantries, thanks yous and you're welcomes, everything has a twist. entire words or phrase are missing from the national vocabulary or entirely different. for example, here in australia there really isn't such a thing as a bathing suit. instead there is a swimming costume, or cossie for short. most people just call it a costume. what do you call a costume then, i asked? just like the brits, the aussies would don fancy dress for halloween, not a costume. well then what on earth would you call an actual fancy dress, i asked, my incredulity mounting. i'm still waiting for an answer on that. another thing- people here aren't as happy as a clam- it's nothing against mollusks, they're just too busy being as happy as larry. i asked sheila who this blissful larry is and was told that it is derived for the word larrikin, a term for a person who is carefree and not fussed with the opinions of others. who knew? i though they might have been talking about the stooge. or larry flint. one of the two. people also consistently talk about getting the shits, and quite publicly at that. what they mean to say is that they got pissed of/are angry about something. for the most part it has nothing to do with their gastro-intestinal systems.

so you can understand how different the speech is here. most of the time i'm just trying to keep up. so i hope you can forgive me the occasional slip of the tongue and won't hold it against me if i ring you instead of call you or stuff it instead of screw up. try not to get the shits- i'm just trying to make a go of it here mate.