Arvo, Bluey and Cockie

I have waited for a very long time before talking about Australian English other than the rhotic aspect because it's so much to say, I am not sure where to start. There is the Aussie English to discuss, as well as the Aussie slang. The language shocks a foreigner, even Americans, with the word usage, word pronunciation, and the slang. If the choice of words is similar to that in British English, pronunciation is less related to most other kinds of English, and slang is simply endemic. I believe that “word usage” is in fact more complicated than I thought, and that may well be because I am 100% foreign and not entitled to comment on this subject. Yet, this is my blog, so I will express my erratic opinion and you may take it as you wish. The complication with word usage comes from the fact that definitions of words are slightly different between American and Aussie English. For example, what Americans call sidewalk is footpath in Oz, but if definitions or folklore explanations as to what these words define are different, I am not sure. Similarly, car boot vs trunk, reckon vs think, and capsicum vs pepper… Pronunciation is different in Aussie English from American and British English not only because the r is obliterated from the end of words and very often from the middle (iron vs i’on; car vs ca’; and September vs Septemba’), but also because the accent seems to be changed on purpose (ad’vertisement vs advertis’ment). Finally, the Aussie slang, and I could write hundreds of posts on this! Because I am about to finish this post though, I will write more on slang tomorrow. Here, I will only explain that afternoon in slang is arvo, bluey can mean red-head, bluebottle jellyfish, pack, traffic ticket, and others, and cockie means farmer, cockatoo, and cockroach. So today's picture is that of a cockie (sulphur-crested white cockatoo) I took one arvo last year!