You really have to listen to understand some of the words that are used here--well, actually, they are just truncated words. And, it's not just casual conversation, either. It's on office posters and ads and it sounds like Kiwis are just too lazy to finish the words!
Doco is documentary.
Ute is a pickup truck.
Rego is registration for your car.
Addy is, of course, address.
Footie is football.
Aggro is aggravation.
Cuppa is a cup of. [Seeing it in print is much more obvious than hearing it in mid-sentence.]
Pressy is present.
Rellies are relatives.
Sickie is a sick day from work or school.
Chrissy is Christmas.
Wally is a clown.
Dunny is bathroom (short for dungeon, originally).
Sparkie is an electrician.
Ta is thanks.
Bach (pronounced: batch) is a vacation shack (short for bachelor).
'Sweet as' [or 'cool as', 'mean as', etc] means sweet (but they apparently forget what the comparsion is!)
Smoko is a smoke break.
Beetroot is sliced beets. [I guess that's just as correct as 'beets']
Mufti is one of the words that totally confused me when I heard it. Uniforms are worn in the public high schools here and occasionally they get to wear civvies when a club is raising money. It costs a dollar not to wear your uniform on mufti day.
Manchester.....any guesses on what that means? Yes, it's the name of a city, but what item in the store is named after it because it made it so well? It's bed linen.
You'd think English would be pretty much the same anywhere English is spoken, but you'd have to think again!
6 comments:
Ah - the joys and mysteries of the English language!
My husband is in the other room watching the big Footie game. HaHa
Maybe you should write and publish and English-To-English dictionary. :-)
When my husband says something that someone cannot understand because of his accent, we joke that I'm his English-to-English translator. :-)
I knew some of these abbreviations, but not all! I know an op shop is what we call a thrift store in the US, but what does op shop stand for?
Visiting via BPOTW!
Elizabeth-- "op" stands for "opportunity".
Wow, most of those abbreviations are terms I almost never hear let alone use. Maybe it's a regional thing - I live in (and was born in) Christchurch. I'm not at all fond of people abbreviating and adding 'ie' or 'y. And if you want to get technical 'beetroot' is more correct than 'beets' haha. Great blog though. I'm enjoying the read (:
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