Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey

Subject: BS: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Helen
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 08:56 PM

For OzCats only, I'm afraid!

The Macquarie Australian Dictionary people are doing a very interesting Word Map project and are asking people to fill in surveys on the words and terms used in your local area.



      Word Map

http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/p/dictionary/wordmap.html

The surveys are quick and fun. If you put in your e-mail address you will get notification of new surveys as they appear.

Helen

P.S. Budgie smugglers relate to swimwear for men.

Subject: RE: BS: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:26 PM

G'day Helen,

It will be interesting to see how the internet allows this to work ... or not. There was a very good analysis done before the internet - sampling crowds in Canberra ... during the Australian Bicentenary, 1988.

Being Canberra (our National Capitol was created as a "New City" in the early 20th century), it meant that everyone was on "neutral" ground - and the sampling was all from visitors, so a fairly even coverage for the whole of Australia was acheived. One result confirmed what I long suspected from my experience of the East Coast: There is a definite "Sydney Triangle", with its own subset of words, in comparison with the rest of Australia, which has a fairly standardised vocabulary. The triangle is, roughly, refined by the respective areas of influence of Newcastle, Wollongong and Bathurst.

(Of course, us Sydneysiders always reckoned it was "Sydney ... or the bush"!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 10:00 PM

Hi, Helen - we've created a "folklore" category for threads like this. I think that information about word usage is of permanent interest to folk musicians. It's not music, but it certainly doesn't fall into the BS/Non-Music category.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 10:04 PM

Swimsuits = Budgie smugglers? LMAO.....Gawd I love it Helen!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 12:09 AM

G'day Spaw,

I was having a rather quieter laugh about that ... but I had to leave room for the classic Spaw response!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 12:42 AM

Budgie smugglers.....snicker!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 03:23 AM

Fnaar fnaar!! (As they say in N'castle)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:50 AM

That's a new one to me, but there's a hell of a lot of female peanut smugglers walking around in Britain.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: TIA
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:31 AM

A fellow's friend was always very successful meeting girls on the beach. The fellow asked his friend what his secret was, and the friend said "I put a potato in my Speedo". The fellow tried it, but the girls all ran away screaming when they saw him. He asked his friend why it didn't work for him, and the friend replied "you should have put the potato in the front".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:39 AM

Similar, but for people in the US, is this Dialect Survey. Also, see the "The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy," even if you're one of those freaks who calls it "soda" or "coke." (Canadians can do this one, too)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Helen
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 06:15 AM

Thanks for changing the category to folklore, Joe. Good logic.

Steve Parkes, is that Newcastle, Oz, because unless I am mispronouncing your phonetics (grin), I don't remember hearing it here.

And a thought to ponder: does the experiment of the Word Map have consequences in the distribution of word usage? It was only when I saw the term "budgie smugglers" that I started using it so now I am spreading the word around my friends, including my Internet/Mudcat friends around the world, and it is such a visually "stimulating" reference that other people have started using the term as well.

A similar problem occurs to me, in that I read an excellent Oz book called Lily on the Dustbin by Nancy Keesing about 15 years ago or more, and now I use some of those expressions as part of my regular vocabulary, because they are so clever. E.g. "as scarce as rocking horse shit". An unbeatable expression, IMHO.

Helen

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: JennyO
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 09:39 AM

"Stick a potato up your bathers mate, that'll get 'em in!"

(Kevin "Bloody" Wilson)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: rich-joy
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 05:07 AM

Dammit Helen, I've just spent what seems like HOURS there - and I'm only up to the "J"s!!!

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Folklore: Budgie smugglers - Oz word map survey
From: Helen
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 06:17 PM

But wait, there's more!

I finished the first round of surveys and felt smugly self-satisfied, but then they added another lot, which I am only half way through.

Helen