Chindians errerring

I have a young Chindian bloke who works with me and I like him a lot. He’s efficient, thorough and has a great sense of humour as evidenced by his self description of Chindian being an Indian from the province of Assam with some Chinese blood in the dim dark past.

That’s enough praise Leon because I don’t want you getting a swollen head and I know you do visit the blog occasionally.

Leon has been in Australia for a few years now and is an avid student of the vernacular. We’ve had a lot of fun teaching him such Australianisms as –

• Pointing Percy at the porcelain
• Shaking hands with the wife’s best friend,
• Black as a dogs gut
• Dry as a dead dingoes donger
• Flat out as a lizard drinking and
• [although not necessarily Australian] milking the python

And a word of warning don’t use the last one to someone who doesn’t know the meaning as a young lady happens to walk past because they may well ask them if they know what it means.

And there have been sayings like –

• I hope your chooks all turn into emus and kick your dunny down
• All over the place like a mad woman’s spit and
• Mad as a cut snake

Anyway, the other day I got back to the office and he said to me, “What does errerr mean?”

“What?,” I asked, not really having a clue as to what he was talking about.

“Errerr, I’ve heard people saying errerr lately.”

“Can you give me the context?”

“Sure, Alex was on the phone the other day and when she hung up she said ‘Errerr’”.

And then it hit me. It was "hooroo" which means Goodbye.

I threw him a few others today including dry as a dead dingos donger and we decided to check his Fair Dinkum Aussie dictionary and side by side with that one was the old favourite “Dry as a Nun’s fanny”

“That’s not true,” he said.

“How many Nun’s have you met,” I asked.

“None, but some years ago I read a Sidney Sheldon novel about the life of a Nun and if that’s true then the saying isn’t!”

So give me a few examples of your favourite Ozzie slang – or make it up if you like.