Because it's fun to have diminutive version of many words. And because it differentiates us from boorish Americans - or as they are also known in Oz, seppos.
seppo is short for septic, which is short for septic tank, which rhymes with yank, and yank is a word used for any American. And although yank comes from yankee, we mostly don’t discriminate between north and south so it is a general term.
Like all words in Aussie only context can make it insulting - it can just as easily be used in a friendly way. Apparently the word seppo is not used much, maybe mostly by older Ockers. I’m summarising a long discussion on the word and usage that goes into more detail: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-australians-call-a...
> what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for everything
It is just language diverging memetically. A small part of it is signalling you are not a stuck up snob.
The wannabe hoity-toity “I’m better than you”-types try and change their accent and word usage to match some “educated” upperclassish snobby accent and then they speak down to others and try to correct their English. Some of the snobby accent is memetic - due to hanging around a particular social group.
The accusation of baby-talk and cheesy comes across as aggressively stuck-up to me.
I’m from New Zealand and it is fun to see some snobby bitch get drunk and then hear her accent shift to some bogan accent(≈hick drawl) from their childhood. I’ve seen the same thing with some suits in a bimmer in a wealthy suburb change their whole demeanour to rural farmer-types given circumstances. In New Zealand farmers are often wealthy and their kids often get expensive private education and move into professional jobs.
I once saw a sign in Australia warning about crossing train tracks. In the land of the free, the sign would have all the coziness of a Secret Service agent:
KEEP OFF TRAIN TRACKS - $100 FINE PER VIOLATION
But this was Australia. So it actually read something like this: "Cross tracks safely and only at the provided walkways. Or cop a $100 fine. Don't say we didn't warn you, mate!"
Australian slang represents something important about Australian values - mateship, the Anzac spirit, a fair go. Aussies don't talk like poms, because they aren't like poms.
I posit that its due to hardship - not to suggest all Australians are super hard off, but it is certainly true that acronyms/shortened words are more common in rural (think high intensity physical labor) or speed-sensitive contexts (think Wall Street, engineering jargon in a engineering context, such as software, or SMS text-messaging).
Given their origins as a prison labor camp, coupled with a legitimately difficult environment (hot, arid, isolated by thousands of miles of ocean, fairly wild/aggressive wildlife such as crocodiles, snakes, kangaroos), their propensity to shortened, almost mono or duo-syllabic words makes plenty of sense in that context.
And finally I've seen the (variation of the) argument usually applied to the Russians, about their slavish nature ("During the Stalin's reign, half of the country was in jail and the other half was the jailers" etc.) leading to the impossibility for them to form a civilized and liberal society, which is usually retorted with an example of the Australians... being applied to the Australians itself.
No, one doesn't need to be of good breed to be freely able to speak multisyllabic words.
I suspect it is just something we picked up from our British heritage, the whole slang thing.
Apple and Pairs, Up the Stairs - all that.
I do find it funny when some folks have been here for a few years and they have picked up all the slang. Someone I used to know had been here for 10 years but still had a very thick Italian accent. It was always a joy when he would bust out a sentence like "I took the mars bar up the Tulla but it was right chockers. All I wanted for a Chook!". Translated, "I took the car up the freeway but there was a traffic jam. I wanted a hot chicken."
brainwad|1 year ago
robocat|1 year ago
seppo is short for septic, which is short for septic tank, which rhymes with yank, and yank is a word used for any American. And although yank comes from yankee, we mostly don’t discriminate between north and south so it is a general term.
Like all words in Aussie only context can make it insulting - it can just as easily be used in a friendly way. Apparently the word seppo is not used much, maybe mostly by older Ockers. I’m summarising a long discussion on the word and usage that goes into more detail: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-australians-call-a...
> what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for everything
It is just language diverging memetically. A small part of it is signalling you are not a stuck up snob.
The wannabe hoity-toity “I’m better than you”-types try and change their accent and word usage to match some “educated” upperclassish snobby accent and then they speak down to others and try to correct their English. Some of the snobby accent is memetic - due to hanging around a particular social group.
The accusation of baby-talk and cheesy comes across as aggressively stuck-up to me.
I’m from New Zealand and it is fun to see some snobby bitch get drunk and then hear her accent shift to some bogan accent(≈hick drawl) from their childhood. I’ve seen the same thing with some suits in a bimmer in a wealthy suburb change their whole demeanour to rural farmer-types given circumstances. In New Zealand farmers are often wealthy and their kids often get expensive private education and move into professional jobs.
bitwize|1 year ago
BobaFloutist|1 year ago
jdietrich|1 year ago
Ylpertnodi|1 year ago
smaudet|1 year ago
Given their origins as a prison labor camp, coupled with a legitimately difficult environment (hot, arid, isolated by thousands of miles of ocean, fairly wild/aggressive wildlife such as crocodiles, snakes, kangaroos), their propensity to shortened, almost mono or duo-syllabic words makes plenty of sense in that context.
Joker_vD|1 year ago
No, one doesn't need to be of good breed to be freely able to speak multisyllabic words.
fian|1 year ago
VelesDude|1 year ago
I suspect it is just something we picked up from our British heritage, the whole slang thing.
Apple and Pairs, Up the Stairs - all that.
I do find it funny when some folks have been here for a few years and they have picked up all the slang. Someone I used to know had been here for 10 years but still had a very thick Italian accent. It was always a joy when he would bust out a sentence like "I took the mars bar up the Tulla but it was right chockers. All I wanted for a Chook!". Translated, "I took the car up the freeway but there was a traffic jam. I wanted a hot chicken."
pimlottc|1 year ago
relaxing|1 year ago
settsu|1 year ago
verteu|1 year ago
Solvency|1 year ago
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