Edna is his most famous character but I found Sir Les Patterson more entertaining and Sandy Stone much more interesting.
"Humphries in his Sandy Stone persona could "reduce an audience of young unbelieving cynics to tears with material that might have been written by James Joyce - delivered with wan, uncomprehending wonderment"
As someone from rural QLD, Australia, I feel like we might be losing some of these unique sayings in our vernacular over time. Though we are definitely still hanging onto our diminutives, especially those ending with o, ie and y (E.g. ambo, rego, arvo, servo, barbie, footy).
Have you ever noticed that in Aussie people tend to end stuff with 'o' more often? Nobody else in the world calls documentation 'doco' do they? It's not a hard and fast rule, granted. Pokies, blueys, I guess. For the imagery, I always loved 'flat out like a lizard...' or one of Dame Edna's: 'I feel like a shag on a rock' which always makes the poms smile.
No-one says doco for 'documentation', but they do all the time for 'documentary': "I saw a doco on sharks last night..."
We're definitely losing a lot of our colloquial terms, but not so much the way we speak. It's the nature of language after all, to change over time. I miss some of the terms, and a while back I intentionally started to use 'crikey' again (though that word itself is not hugely missed). Friends of mine, born and bred here, think it's hilariously quaint.
No-one says doco for documentation? You'd better have a word with everybody in Little Collins Street then mate. (Used to drive me mad bloody victorians).
Definitely, we sure do love shortening words, while using an 'o' at the end. It was a bit of an adjustment moving to North America and using the full word, even in casual conversations. Small things like saying "gas/service station" instead of "servo" or "vehicle registration" instead of "rego". Us Aussie's must come across quite unprofessional at times with our slang and sayings like 'flat out like a lizard'.
two that I heard this year from BT doing footy commentary that I loved: "hard as a cat's head" and "he was all over him like a cheap suit". What a dead set legend!
I'm pretty sure that the full expression is 'flat out like a lizard drinking'. Which is presumably because they can't kneel elegantly at the watering hole, and just splay their limbs.
> Of course, the use of the word “mate” is ubiquitous in Australia, and has slowly lost its old, comradely meaning. Not seldom now it can have a hostile ring, as in “Whadaya think you’re doin’, mate?”
'Mate' now usually either implies condescension or social distance (or cultural cringe), at least in the south eastern states. International stereotypes of Australian language are yet to catch up.
Jimeoin had a bit years ago where he talked about the three kinds of 'mate' there were. There's the short, clipped 'mate' for when you're pissed off (oh, mate, got a parking ticket). There's the medium 'mate' when you see your friend arrive at the pub (maate, maate, how are ya). And the long 'mate'... for when you're about to ask to borrow something (maaaaaaaaaaayte...) :)
In the movie from the article, Barry explains the etymology of the term (coming from the sea journeys of the early settlers) before a performance of Chunder in the Old Pacific Sea.
