Tuesday, January 03, 2006

T

ta
thanks

TAFE
Technical and Further Education, trade school, community college.

It runs apprenticeship courses, secretarial courses, small business and computer courses, catch-up classes in high school maths, English, physics and so on and hobby classes (art, cooking, languages, etc) at night. It is government run, of a high standard and preferred by employers.
TAFE NSW website.

taking the piss
sending someone or something up, taking the mickey, making fun, spoofing, satire.

At no point is urine ingested.

Australian free-to-air TV programmes take the piss:
The Games
Kath & Kim
Frontline
Good News Week
Mark Loves Sharon
The Hollowmen

The Gruen Transfer is a documentary deconstructing advertising, with a satire component. So it falls at least partly into the category of taking the piss.

American TV programmes that take the piss are: The Simpsons, Futurama, My Name is Earl, Family Guy.

American actor taking the piss out of Eye of the Tiger

Tassie
Tasmania

The big island off the bottom right hand corner of Australia. (Map)

See also: map of Tassie

ten pound Poms
British subjects who took part in the assisted migration scheme bringing Britons to Australia in the 1950s and 60s.

Ten pounds is an amount of money, Poms are British people and Australia was (and is) still part of the British Commonwealth, hence the choice of Britons as migrants. The ten pounds then is a few hundred dollars in today's money. Adults paid and their children under 18 got free passage. The journey out from England took weeks and the ships used were often pre-World War II ocean liners that had been used as warships before being converted back to passenger ships for assisted migration. My grandparents were ten pound Poms.

theatre
playhouse

thongs
flip flops

Yeah, we got what you call a thong. We call it a g-string. We have a good giggle when you guys talk about wearing thongs as underwear.


Thong
A thong

tinny
1. can of beer

2. aluminium dingy

Usage example: A says, "I'm going out in the tinny tomorrow. You coming?" B says, "Righto, and I'll bring a few tinnies."

trackies
sweat pants or the whole tracksuit

tracky daks
sweat pants, bottom half of a tracksuit

transportation
transportation of a convict or convicts to Australia by the British legal system in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Between 1788 (founding of British colony at Port Jackson (Sydney)) and 1868, British criminals known in Australia as convicts were sent by ship to serve their sentences as labourers. In Australia the word "convict" refers only to those colonial convicts and modern convicts are referred to as "crims".

trots
1. diarrhoea

2. sulky racing, horse and buggy racing

Usage example: "I wanted to go to the trots with my mates on Saturday but I had the trots and stayed home".

two-up
game of chance played by tossing two coins of equal size (preferably two old pennies) up into the air from a short flat stick. Bets are placed on how they fall.

tyranny of distance
the considerable distance between Australia (and New Zealand) and the rest of the English-speaking world

Before motor-powered ships and planes, it took weeks and sometimes months to travel from Australia and New Zealand to the UK. In a plane it's still one of the longest flights in the world at 22-24 hours.

Labels:

2 Comments:

Blogger Aesthetic said...

This is cool!

11:20 PM  
Blogger Spike said...

Thank yer. It's rather fun to do.

1:02 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home