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| How American are you now? | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 5 2010, 10:06:23 PM (10,122 Views) | |
| pastrycook-136 | Aug 30 2010, 01:52:37 AM Post #81 |
True Blue Mate
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I have noticed that when giving an address or location Australians often say or write for example that the Jam Factory is IN Chapel St. instead of saying it is ON Chapel St. This never sounds correct to me but I hear it fairly often. |
| "If you want to gather honey don't kick over the beehive!" | |
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| AmbroseChick | Aug 30 2010, 12:24:48 PM Post #82 |
True Blue Mate
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Speaking of addresses... does anyone notice that instead of putting a proper address, i.e. "10 XX St., Ashmore" that the addresses of appear as "The corner of XX St. and OO Parade in Ashmore"... makes it a huge pain to find an address on a GPS!
Edited by AmbroseChick, Aug 30 2010, 12:25:07 PM.
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| delilah514 | Aug 30 2010, 11:03:35 PM Post #83 |
Chinwagger
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all this talk over double LL's and J's in spanish got me thinking about the first time I went to a mexican restaurant here. I ordered 2 shots of patron for my boyfriend & I. They looked at me like I was crazy. I pointed it out on the menu and they said oh PAT-ron. I nearly fell out of my seat laughing. |
| Melissa | |
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| AmbroseChick | Aug 30 2010, 11:31:13 PM Post #84 |
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Melissa - I felt the same way the first time I heard my husband say jalepeno with a J sound... I said what? and almost peed myself laughing. |
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| janders1957 | Aug 31 2010, 06:35:02 AM Post #85 |
True Blue Mate
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Yeah, that one really gets to Danni, she can't help but comment they're called prawns, and at least around Coota, nobody put them on the barbie... We did go to an Outback Steakhouse in the SF Bay Area once. She tried to give them hell over the menu not reflecting real Aussie cooking at all. I guess they're quite used to Australians giving them a bad time as our waitress took it all in stride with a smile. |
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| sunshine | Aug 31 2010, 01:03:15 PM Post #86 |
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Haha, awww, my boyfriend actually had a great time when we went to an Outback Steakhouse. For him it was all just hilarious, over-the-top kitsch. They even had a boomerang above the bar with his name printed on it! We're totally going again on our next trip to the states. I can't get over the 'tor-tilla' thing either. Also, I'm going to have to find pinto beans somewhere because I'm getting serious burrito cravings. Every time I go down the frozen food aisle I wish there were fewer pies and more burritos. |
| Steph | |
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| KimInMellie | Aug 31 2010, 02:42:49 PM Post #87 |
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Oooohhh .... Amy's brand frozen burritos are the BEST. Now I'm hungry. I looked at pinto beans on the USA Foods web site yesterday. I'm almost desperate enough to pay $3.99 a can. The two Mexican food sites mentioned on another thread have dried pinto beans though -- may go that route. |
 Go that way really, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn. -- Charles De Mar | |
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| Nanook | Sep 2 2010, 10:35:33 PM Post #88 |
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We're the only ones without an accent 
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| CynicalCountess | Sep 2 2010, 10:46:13 PM Post #89 |
True Blue Mate
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Mmhm. I think the best description of the Minnesota accent is Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin. The way she draws out the vowels is totally Minnesotan. |
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| gpierce | Sep 2 2010, 11:10:19 PM Post #90 |
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Not on a Tom Tom. It lets you input a cross street as a destination. Now, which corner it is, that's the really tough part:) |
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| gpierce | Sep 2 2010, 11:11:39 PM Post #91 |
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You don't have to go to the US for that. There are two of them in Sydney;) |
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| crapola | Sep 3 2010, 12:24:31 AM Post #92 |
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also alaaaaaaskan.... |
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| Ausson | Sep 3 2010, 12:37:13 AM Post #93 |
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Having grown up an Aussie i have to say that whenever i heard mention of aluminum Christmas trees I was fascinated, thinking they must be the most luminous and beautiful trees ever, and then i spent Christmas stateside and discovered they were just cheesy old aluminium trees. What a gipe. Now, as an Aussie who has spent the past 15 years in the US, and who is now a returning ex-pat and a fully fledged yank I thought I should comment. I was, and still am, completely confused by sayings such as 'you lucked out' and 'I could care less'. These Americanisms are just wrong I tell you, yet they are accepted and used without question. When I first arrived I would refer to the local interstate as THE 80/90, and my co-worker would keep trying to change how I referenced it, but then I was easily able to refer to I25 without prefacing with THE. I lived in Colorado Springs, which is a very big military town, and I was part of the Aussie Kiwi club. The main members in that club were military wives that dated back as far as WWII brides (we had three of these lovely ladies), and included wives of the Vietnam era and wives of the more recent times. I found it interesting that our three WWII brides all still had very strong, proper accents, whilst the recent were a mix between full on Aussie or Kiwi to very American. It did seem that if you were going to pick up the accent it would happen over time, but not everyone did so. One of my friends is in her mid 60s, has been in Colorado Springs for over 35 years, and sounds like she just stepped off the boat. Even though I thought I had retained my Aussie accent I had to accept that this wasn't the case when more often than not I had people ask me where in Ma I was from, rather than picking i was an Australian. From my personal experience I have to say that by being adamant that you wont use the local words you are making a statement that you don't want to fit in. Americans in Australia are at a slight advantage over the reverse situation because Aussies can understand a lot of American words from being fed the American culture and language via tv, and this definitely isn't reciprocated (unless we count the NY eve I spent in a bar in Chicago entertaining myself with a balloon of helium saying 'thats not a knife', but we wont go into that). I'm not talking about walking around saying g'day mate, because even Aussies don't really say that too much, but vowing to continue to say gas station and trunk and hood just really speaks volumes. It doesn't matter that you don't have the accent, it just matters that you have bothered to learn the difference and are willing to speak in words that the locals can easily understand. And if you're just trying to maintain your identity don't worry because you will stick out like a sore thumb by virtue of your accent as an American. I know I went through about 3 phases when I moved to the US. 1 was becoming aware of the American words for all the stuff I knew in Australian terms (like sweater instead of jumper) 2. was trying to translate everything as I spoke to make sure i used the local words 3. was forgetting which word went with which country, so at this point I just said what i knew and if I got a blank stare I'd restate using the translation. Even then I found that some things don't translate very well, like 'spitting the dummy' just lost a lot in translation, and when I described my twins as chalk and cheese I'd get a lot of confused looks. I completely agree that you can't totally acclimate, and neither you should and if you were in the US you wouldn't. How many people did I meet from various other states who still had a great affinity for the place of their upbringing I can't even count, so I don't even suggest you do so when moving downunder. But like someone who goes from a state that serves ice tea unsweetened to a state that serves it sweet, why wouldn't you adjust? Why wouldn't you learn to order 'unsweetened' ice tea rather than continue to order ice tea and be mad when it comes sweetened? I understand that you can't totally take the country out of the girl. I'm sure you can all appreciate that, as an Aussie, I was unable to speak to the new guy at work in Colorado without a huge grin on my dial when i found that his name was Randy Root. And why I thought it funny that a friend had boys named Tucker and Spencer. So just how American am I? Well it was all I could to refrain from putting an old guy in his place on the bus ride home the other day as he spouted off about how America is the poorest nation in the world and how people think that Obama is the most powerful man in the world but he isn't really. When he started on how the Americans make slaves of Mexicans and then started on about how that was a good thing i was glad to get off the bus. I have defended the US on a few occasions since arriving, and even though i had to get involved at my son's school after an altercation I did have a private laugh upon hearing that when my son was teased for being American his retort was that Australia was full of convicts. Hmmm, I will have to have a word to his dad about that because I'm sure that little piece of info did not come from me. Edited by Ausson, Sep 3 2010, 12:51:22 AM.
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| Reader3333 | Sep 3 2010, 11:38:01 AM Post #94 |
True Blue Mate
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Kim, Look for dried Borlotti (sp?) beans. Really they're the same. Maybe just a TAD smaller in size- but they look and taste the same. I had gotten them at IGA until they closed, now I get them at an Asian market. I ordered some pinto's from fireworks because I ordered some tomatillos and what I thought was going to be mild chili powder (boy was I wrong)-- oh and some real corn tortillas and masa. Woolies has canned bortolli beans- I have some but have never opened them-- but the dried beans are really good. -Vicki |
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| crapola | Sep 3 2010, 12:40:59 PM Post #95 |
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True Blue Mate
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those two sayings absolutely drive me crazy, too, because what the speaker really means is the exact opposite of what they're saying. |
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| KimInMellie | Sep 3 2010, 09:49:50 PM Post #96 |
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True Blue Mate
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I heard Richard Stubbs say 'I could care less' (definitely 'could', not 'couldn't') on afternoon radio today. I hate it no matter who says it -- doesn't make sense. |
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Go that way really, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn. -- Charles De Mar | |
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| beckagator | Sep 4 2010, 11:20:34 AM Post #97 |
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True Blue Mate
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i could care less about nonsensical sayings-hehehehe! |
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| gpierce | Sep 4 2010, 07:26:14 PM Post #98 |
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True Blue Mate
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It's supposed to be couldn't care less, but some people have just shortened it. Isn't that exactly what Aussies do? I mean, people don't actually lay out on a rock like a lizard do they?;) My 1975 Falcon XB 2 door hardtop (read coupe), has a handle on it that reads "Hood" and it was manufactured here so I refer to it as hood. My Camaro also has a hood, but I refer to everything else has having a bonnet. |
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| KimInMellie | Sep 4 2010, 08:10:59 PM Post #99 |
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True Blue Mate
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Vicki, thanks for the heads-up about Borlotti beans. I've seen them at the supermarket, & they definitely look similar. Wikipedia says they're not the same bean and don't taste the same, but I'll take your word over the anonymous web site any day.  I'll give them a try.
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Go that way really, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn. -- Charles De Mar | |
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| AmbroseChick | Sep 4 2010, 10:53:01 PM Post #100 |
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True Blue Mate
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I've used Borlotti beans for refried beans and they were awesome! |
| Check it out! Facebook page: Americans Living in Queensland | |
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