Ok, you know me better than that. I'll make a comment...or two. This must reeeealy be good soda to have this name. Forget "Smuckers! With a Name Like This..." Actually, here in the land of shortening words such as sun glasses are 'sunnies,' postal workers are called 'posties,' people working in the trades are called 'tradies,' and believe it or not, members of motorcycle gangs are called "bikies!" I did tell an Aussie that to shorten words and add "ie" to the end tends to make Americans think it's cute, such as "Isn't that cute little Bikie?!" Naturally, the Aussie was horrified telling me, "Bikies are NOT cute!" Aussies call soda pop, soft drinks. Not 'pop,' not 'soda,' not even 'sodie pop' like the do in Missouri, but 'soft drinks?!' Of course the option is either water (only in the Outback would this even be considered) or milk if you're a child, so the only 'other' drink would be a hard drink, which I guess makes sense. I did have a previous post about weird food items and it is funny what is really innocent in one geographic area can be so...funny in another. Maybe it's just me. We got a memo about an office meeting that said we'd have a demonstration for a defibrillator with our Office Manager Mark, giving a demonstration on the office staff. I was wondering who hadn't been performing well lately and of course thought it might be me and wondered if I should skip the meeting or if I had to attend. I re-read the memo and of course it said Mark would be giving a presentation to the office (on the current condition of the office and finances is what was supposed to be inferred). I wrote to the author of the memo suggesting a clearer way to express the TWO different items on the agenda and her left handed response was "it must be interesting being you."
I hope this little bit was somewhat interesting. I feel like I'm not sometimes as this is a rare 3 day weekend and what am I doing on our Monday off? I'm in the office since not all States in Oz observe this day off and I need to get some work out of the Perth office today.
Write, call, email, comment. See you around the Christmas holidays!
1 comment:
You're right, it's funny how language works (or doesn't), and this is especially true here in Japan with the use of what can (generously) be described as "decorative" English. I wasn't aware of Aussies (my spell check says this is not a word, and offers me as suggestions "Assisi" "Hussies" and "Pussies") shortening words and adding ie, though of course Aussie is a perfect example!
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