Australianisms

As I write this, I’m sitting at a cafe at St. Kilda, Melbourne (Australia, that is). Because of, ahem, certain recent pandemia, it’s been almost impossible for me to return home to see my family and friends. And of course, after nearly three years, it’s lovely to be home. But now that I’m here, it’s reminded me of a) how bloody far away it is, and b) how different our language and culture can be. You may be familiar with some of our lingo, for example the classic: put another shrimp on the barbie. Barbie is our way of saying barbecue, however you’ll be disappointed to know we don’t actually use the word shrimp here; we say prawn. (This word was “translated” for a tourism ad-campaign to entice Americans to visit. Did it work?) And of course, there are many more local colloquialisms that never made it off these shores, some even related to jazz. So allow me, your self-appointed cultural ambassador, to explain some important Australianisms, so on your next trip down under you can wow the musos with some local lingo. For example, in jazz here we don’t say someone is swinging. We say they are hopping, eg: that solo was really hopping! This is a result of the cultural influence of our native marsupial, the kangaroo! Here’s another term that will seem strange to you. We, of course, have trumpets here. Except we don’t call them trumpets. In honor of the native abor