Things you often Wonder

[bickster]

17 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Why did I just post in the Bruce thread? 

Ah come on, even I did it last week. Ok I was taking the piss but eventually it sucks us all in at some point

[sidcow]

20 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Why did I just post in the Bruce thread? 

I made a rare visit earlier. It reminds me how I can't fathom why anyone would put themselves through the horror of watching Eastenders. It just can't be enjoyable for anyone in there. 

[MrDuck]

Why are buddhas always so fat? They clearly haven't managed the whole detachment thing when it comes to pie and cake.

[A'Villan]

3 hours ago, MrDuck said:

Why are buddhas always so fat? They clearly haven't managed the whole detachment thing when it comes to pie and cake.

Isn't Buddhism all about abundance mentality? Maybe that applies to pies and cake too

[A'Villan]

Say a Greek or Italian family moves to Australia and settles, I'll include Serbs, Croats and Bosnians in this too.

I understand the accent in this scenario, when you're fresh of the boat.

What I don't understand is why these peoples children's children speak in this mutated accent'. English is their first language and they don't sound anything like the authentic accent.

It's almost a boganised version of their European accents. Maybe it's an Australian thing. Aussie accents are pretty bogan.

Must be a hybrid of the Aussie ocker and their family cultural background.

Edited August 2, 2018 by blandy
offensive word removed

[mjmooney]

Accents and generations are interesting. Normally, I'd say second generation immigrant kids - assuming they're spending time with indigenous kids - talk like their friends (i.e. with a local accent), and not at all like their parents. This is, in my experience, a major factor in acceptance by the local community. 'Talking like us', and not like a 'funny foreigner' seems to make a big difference (I'd be interested to hear the opinions of VTers with experience of this). 

What I find curious are the ones who don't adopt a local accent, but consciously affect something like the pseudo-gangsta/Asian/estuary hybrid. I guess it's a deliberate 'nobody likes us and we don't care' strategy to self-define as 'outsiders'. 

[A'Villan]

14 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Accents and generations are interesting. Normally, I'd say second generation immigrant kids - assuming they're spending time with indigenous kids - talk like their friends (i.e. with a local accent), and not at all like their parents. This is, in my experience, a major factor in acceptance by the local community. 'Talking like us', and not like a 'funny foreigner' seems to make a big difference (I'd be interested to hear the opinions of VTers with experience of this). 

What I find curious are the ones who don't adopt a local accent, but consciously affect something like the pseudo-gangsta/Asian/estuary hybrid. I guess it's a deliberate 'nobody likes us and we don't care' strategy to self-define as 'outsiders'. 

I went to a high school with a lot of different backgrounds. Melbourne has the 2nd highest population of Greeks in any city outside of Athens, and the area we were in at the time had a big Greek/Italian population. We had more Asians than Caucasian. Your accent was often down to the company you kept, as you say. My Mothers side is Greek but I never adopted the wog accent that my Greek peers did. I wasn't exclusive with who I spent my time with though. Whereas the majority of wogs stuck together, like the Asians and the Aussies did too.

Now I live in a an area where there are a tonne of Muslims (I hear Birmingham is like this) predominantly African, their accent is unique but similar among themselves.

The heavily pronounced wog accent is what I don't get, as you mention it's probably down to identifying as outsider.

Just as long as no one expects me to start saying things like 'lit' or 'hunnit' in order to form a common bond we're good.

[BOF]

Just now, A'Villan said:

I went to a high school with a lot of different backgrounds. Melbourne has the 2nd highest population of Greeks in any city outside of Athens, and the area we were in at the time had a big Greek/Italian population. We had more Asians than Caucasian. Your accent was often down to the company you kept, as you say. My Mothers side is Greek but I never adopted the wog accent that my Greek peers did. I wasn't exclusive with who I spent my time with though. Whereas the majority of wogs stuck together, like the Asians and the Aussies did too.

Now I live in a an area where there are a tonne of Muslims (I hear Birmingham is like this) predominantly African, their accent is unique but similar among themselves.

The heavily pronounced wog accent is what I don't get, as you mention it's probably down to identifying as outsider.

Just as long as no one expects me to start saying things like 'lit' or 'hunnit' in order to form a common bond we're good.

Just for my own clarity here and to remove any ambiguity over meaning or local dialect but, ahem, what's a 'wog' in the above context?

[A'Villan]

It was a derogatory word for Greeks and Italians or any Balkan in Melbourne, which kind of turned in to a term without any negative connotations by the time the persecution of that phase of migrants was over.

I suppose it's kind of like the N word nowadays except everyone here uses it whereas the N word is exclusively used by Africans among themselves.

@BOF

Edited August 2, 2018 by A'Villan

[BOF]

3 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

It was a derogatory word for Greeks and Italians or any Balkan in Melbourne, which kind of turned in to a term without any negative connotations by the time the persecution of that phase of migrants was over.

I suppose it's kind of like the N word nowadays except everyone here uses it whereas the N word is exclusively used by Africans among themselves.

@BOF

Thanks @A'Villan That's why I asked.  Because in other parts of the world that word is still very derogatory for certain populations.  I figured you wouldn't be throwing it around if it meant the same to you as I thought it meant.

[chrisp65]

Yeah, that's not a word I've heard in a couple of decades.

I had a sudden urge to run outside and scrawl NF on a wall.

[VILLAMARV]

[VILLAMARV]

a trip to wikipedia suggests Scientologists also still use it - to describe us muggles.

 

[MrDuck]

1 hour ago, BOF said:

Thanks @A'Villan That's why I asked.  Because in other parts of the world that word is still very derogatory for certain populations.  I figured you wouldn't be throwing it around if it meant the same to you as I thought it meant.

You can also by Coon cheese here in Oz!

Quite ironic that in a country with such deeply entrenched racism, words like wog or coon are used perfectly innocently

[MrDuck]

[BOF]

9 minutes ago, MrDuck said:

You can also by Coon cheese here in Oz!

Quite ironic that in a country with such deeply entrenched racism, words like wog or coon are used perfectly innocently

On a related note, a word which is completely innocent only in Australia and Ireland is the short word for sandwich - sambo.  'I'd love a ham sambo'.   Be careful using that one elsewhere.  It is every day common usage over here.  Of course I used it in England and got some glances that required explanation  

[A'Villan]

1 hour ago, BOF said:

On a related note, a word which is completely innocent only in Australia and Ireland is the short word for sandwich - sambo.  'I'd love a ham sambo'.   Be careful using that one elsewhere.  It is every day common usage over here.  Of course I used it in England and got some glances that required explanation  

I hadn't really thought about the possibility of the word being taken in a different way from one place to another, as it's never had any real negative connotations to it in my lifetime, not that would be met with much hostility anyway.

I imagine one might find themselves getting dropped for using the word sambo in some neighbourhoods. Thankfully I can't see myself walking through Harlem saying "I could murder a sambo right now" anytime soon.

1 hour ago, MrDuck said:

I'd all but forgotten about him. Guido Hatsis (plumber prank call) is another good one. And while I'm not a fan Fat Pizza and SuperWog (Youtube channel) are also pretty funny.

Arj Barker has a accurate and funny depiction of Aussie slang on one of his stand up shows.

 

[Tegis]

53 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

I hadn't really thought about the possibility of the word being taken in a different way from one place to another,

One of my favorites is that between Stockholm and southern Sweden, the word "balle" is either penis or buttocks. First time I heard it after moving south was a girl complaining she fell over and hurt her "balle"

Instant reaction was WNB

[HanoiVillan]

10 hours ago, MrDuck said:

Why are buddhas always so fat? They clearly haven't managed the whole detachment thing when it comes to pie and cake.

They aren't. Buddhas can be either fat or thin, as below:

Vinh Trang Temple, My Tho, Vietnam

Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, Hong Kong

An intense debate on Quora (https://www.quora.com/Why-are-some-statues-of-Buddha-fat-and-others-skinny) suggests that the fat figure is not Siddhartha Gautama (the real historical figure referred to as 'Buddha', which is a title) at all, but instead a traditional Chinese (?) god (?) named Bodai (?) who represents fertility and happiness and may have become confused with the actual 'Buddha' over time, either by accident or malice.

Hope that helps!

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, MrDuck said:

You can also by Coon cheese here in Oz!

Quite ironic that in a country with such deeply entrenched racism, words like wog or coon are used perfectly innocently

I was taking to a guy from the South recently and he started talking about coons. I was shocked at first but in the south of the US ‘coon’ is short for raccoon. They have dogs which they call ‘coon-hounds’ which means any type of dog that will chase a raccoon up into a tree and scare it off or kill it.