English in Australia has diverged somewhat from its roots, but not so much that we’re completely unintelligible to others who might speak their own variety of the language. Being immersed in the stuff, it can be hard to truly appreciate its quirks, until someone highlights them for you.
In this video, Rhys Keir (left) pronounces a word in its original form, while Josh Hawkins (right) mutilates it in typical Australian fashion.
As your hear Hawkins verbalise the likes of “bikky”, “choccy” and “avo”, you’ll realise we’re not particularly creative when it comes to mangling words, often preferring to shorten them as much as possible, before adding a -y, -o or -ie to round off the cut-down collection of syllables (or in a lot of cases, syllable).
And yes, by the end of it, you can’t help but feel a little bogan. The words have a way of rubbing off on you.
[YouTube, via The Guardian]