Lessons in Australian slang

1. Everyone has to do a presentation in my creative writing class, and one of the first guys to do one brought in lollipops and gave them to people who answered his questions. Now everyone brings in lollipops or other candy when they give presentations. Except they never call them lollipops or candy or gummy worms or malted milk balls...it's always "LOLLIES."

2. Whenever you go on a trip somewhere, you go "on holiday."

3. People really do say "mate."

4. Two really big ones: Gas is never gas, it is PETROL. And cell phones are not cell phones, they are MOBILE PHONES, with the mobile really pronounced out. This baffles me a little, because Australians do tend to shorten words a ton (University is always, "uni" for example) but both petrol and mobile are more syllables than gas and cell. Also, lines aren't called lines, they are called "queues." I suppose in this case queue is the same number of syllables as line, but still I feel like line is just so much easier to say.

5. This one makes me laugh: "tutorials" (the smaller classes here) are always refered to by Australians as "tutes." ALWAYS. Actually, a couple weeks ago I had a sweet Australian boy come up to me and say, "I saw you in our tute and I reckon you're beautiful." Notice his use of "tute" and of "I reckon" (as Australians use this phrase often, too.)

6. There is no ketchup! Only tomato sauce! Although the tomato sauce is ketchup...I think. Very confusing. I mean, is tomato sauce still tomato sauce too? Also, fries are chips, or hot chips, or wedges. It depends on the type. I had an Australian man on a bus explain it all to me, but it was just much too confusing. I'm also not quite sure if (US) chips are chips, like if you buy a bag of chips, are they chips? Possibly crisps? I will have to investigate this further and get back to you.