Friday, October 30, 2015

Have you ever wondered how Australians developed that cool accent?

According to this professor, alcohol was involved.

4 comments:

Mikael said...

Hmmm, interesting theory. But how do it explain the accent of New Zealanders or South Africans? Or Jamaicans. (Ok, the last one I will be willing to tribute to all that 'rrrum and ganja, mon'.)

Not to mention the various dialects in USA. Is the difference between New York and, say, down in the Bayou that the former are high on Chardonnay and the good pot, and the latter are stoned out of their minds on bootleg bourbon?

Even here in tiny Denmark there is a very notably difference in the dialect between a civilized person (such as me) and one from the west coast a mere 150 miles away. Perhaps it's because they eat more fish out there in the wilderness. Who nows.

I see a whole new field of science her. The good professor should apply for some more grant money and explore.

bruce said...

If you don't speak with an Australian accent here, you end up choking on flies.

You have to keep your mouth closed most of the time to avoid this, even when talking.

I just had a brief walk in a local field and surrounded by dozens of flies. Already accidentally breathed at least fly one in, this Spring season. Don't know why there are so many. Damn wombats and wallabies leaving scats everywhere maybe. Even aborigines always talked like this as I jokingly (?) point out on Tim's thread.

Robert of Ottawa said...

It is Cockney/South East England based, what today is referred to as Estuary, as that's where most of the criminals came from. They had run out of jails and were kept on decomissioned Royal Navy ships. But conditions were squalid and after the US rebellion, they could not be shipped there any more,

Banks, Captain Cook's fellow traveller, suggested transporting them to Australia.

Robert of Ottawa said...

Bruce, what a load of codswallop. Why, then, do they not have Australian accents in Manitoba?