Australian Slang Trivia Quiz

Answer: Australian Rules Football

Australian Rules football, about which I know nothing, consists of two teams of eighteen players each endeavouring to score the most points by the conclusion of a game. Players are allowed to kick, hand pass to another player (which means hitting it with a closed fist as it is balanced on the other hand), or run with the ball, but, when doing the latter, either have to bounce it or touch it on the ground as they run towards the goal posts.

They're not allowed to just hang onto it and gallop up the length of the field.

The thing that distinguishes Aussie Rules from other football leagues is the ball-up. That is when an umpire (usually) bounces the ball so hard into the ground that it bounces high into air and the first player to leap up after it, like a salmon after a fly, gains possession of same. That is one of the reasons Australian Rules Football has been given its mocking nickname by fans of the other football leagues in this country. I don't see the connection myself, but that doesn't matter.

Answer: A person from Queensland

Australians have weird names such as these for the residents of each different state in the country. Following are a few of these:

- Queenslanders are "Banana Benders" (they grow a lot of bananas up in the north of that state) or "Cane Toads" (ditto). Both these names are used by people from New South Wales because of the ongoing rivalry between the two states - usually over football.
- Those from New South Wales are referred to as Cockroaches, usually by Queenslanders (because they apparently have more of them than all the cane toads or bananas put together in Queensland).
- Victorians are called "Cabbage Patchers" (because it's one of the smaller states) or "Gum Suckers" (because they were once known for chewing gum tree resin) or "Mexicans" by both Queensland and New South Wales residents (because they're south of the border).
- Tasmanians are "Apples Islanders" (they grow a lot) or "Barracoutas" (which they apparently once consumed in large quantities when they were starving).
- South Australians are known as "Crow-eaters" (not because they eat them but because a magpie is on that state's coat of arms).
- Folk from the Northern Territory are either called "Top Enders" (for obvious reasons) or, far less flatteringly, "Alcoholics" or "Crocbait" (you can imagine why, I'm sure).
- People from Western Australia are referred to as "Sandgropers" (there are huge deserts and beachers over there).
- Finally, those from Canberra, the site of our nation's capital city, are known as "Roundabout-abouters" (because the city is full of those confusing traffic devices). As that city is also filled with politicians who run, or do not run, this country, I can think of several other names that would be far more applicable.

Answer: He or she is bragging

If anyone in Australia is referred to - always contemptuously - as big-noting themselves, they've been frowned on well and truly by a race of people who actively dislike anyone who brags about his or her real or imagined accomplishments. We simply don't do that here. We're more inclined to say, for example, if we're really fine singers, that we "sing a bit", or if a fine sportsman as "playing a bit of sport now and then", or, if saving someone from drowning perhaps, to describe it as, "I dragged the mug out of the drink".

Answer: The person is an idiot

Bourke Street is one of the major streets in the Victorian capital, Melbourne. At night time in particular, this large thoroughfare is brightly lit up and twinkling with a thousand lights - just like a lavishly decorated Christmas tree. To refer to someone as not being able to distinguish between those two entities is an insulting comment on that person's woeful lack of intelligence about life in general, rather than a low IQ.

Answer: Farmer

Australia has many beautiful birds. Some of these include our cockatoos - large white crested birds known for hanging around waterholes in areas remote from civilisation. We usually refer to them as cockies. When Australia was first settled by Europeans, and people began to move out from those early settlements to set up farms, these were, out of necessity, established near waterholes or rivers.

Hence the connection between the two names. A cockie is a bird and also a farmer. Very logical I think.

Answer: His wife

This is a term hardly ever heard now, and with good reason, given that we're supposed to have full equality between the genders. That kind of chauvinistic statement would go down like a lead balloon today. The lady in question would probably give him a good tongue bashing (a severe speaking to) in reply. To be fair to the gentlemen though, this was usually used as a form of endearment, rather than a statement of male superiority. Unless, of course, married to me.

He would then either be speaking in terms of great sorrow, or accompanied by chronic indigestion.

Answer: None

Poor old dingoes in the wild are half starved, thin looking animals that really need saving. They have been on this continent as long as have the indigenous people who first resided here before the advent of Europeans. Although they are certainly able to take care of themselves in a fertile and well stocked land, Australia is really not known for that because of our large expanses of arid lands and deserts and long period of droughts. So a dingo's breakfast, in layman's terms, consisted of a stretch, "a yawn, a leak and a good look round" - and nothing to eat at all.

Answer: Smugly satisfied

A poor little fox, when dead, appears to have a happy smile on its cute little dial. So too, though very much alive, is a person, in Australian slang, who has either achieved something pretty great, or come into a stroke of good fortune. That person also has a smirk of happiness plastered across his or her "gob" (mouth).

Answer: His penis

Australian men are really comical when referring to that portion of their anatomy. They either give it the oddest names under the sun, as in the above, or refer to it in glowing terms similar to those given to a best mate or a fine sportsman. In short - oh, pardon the pun - it's never, ever referred to by its proper anatomical name.

Answer: That person cannot handle their liquor

A pot is a term for a large glass of beer in this country. The fellows, and some women too, toss them down as if drinking water on a hot day - and with barely a blink to register their effect after even two or three. A two pot screamer, on the other hand, is a person who can't handle alcohol at all and is more than likely have passed out after drinking same, or can be found sobbing bitterly about the colours in the carpet on the pub floor.

It's not a very flattering term in this country, given the nation's propensity for alcohol consumption, and is usually delivered in dismissive or disappointed tone of voice.