Why do Aussies like to shorten words? That's the research question that Nenagh Kemp of University of Tasmania (or Uni of Tassie) is asking:
"What we'd like to find out is how people feel when they're listening to someone using those kinds of shortenings, compared to someone who's not," doctor Nenagh Kemp told AFP from Hobart.
"It might tell us more about whether people think it makes you sound more friendly or more intelligent or more casual, and also differences."
Kemp said while abbreviations were present in all forms of English, they were more common in Australia, where tradesmen are "tradies", firemen are "firies", ambulance workers are "ambos" and service stations are "servos".
She believes that the shortenings are a way of conveying a sense of informality in a country known for its egalitarian ethos.
"I think it does set up a feeling of companionship or casualness and friendliness," she said.
"You might use that to say, 'hey, I'm on the same level as you. I'm not being too pretentious."
Comments (7)
I don't know of nay Aussie who would opt to study in NZ
At least we can articulate vowels correctly. The New Zealand accent sounds like regardless of how the words are spelled, the vowels actually enunciated are randomly drawn from a hat.
So "aussie" isn't short for "awesome"?
When we were lowly tourists in Oz, we were told it wasn't a ditch between Australia and New Zealand but a moat!
In NZ we consider it a good thing when New Zealanders move to Australia to live, as it raises the IQ of both countries.
If you actually knew how science works, you'd realize that to scientists who actually spend their entire lives studying their respective fields, the word "theory" does not mean opinion, as you seem to imply. In fact, a good scientist rarely ever uses the word "fact," because the best that we humans can do is make conclusions based on observations, but rarely can we ever say that something is an absolute "fact."
To a scientist, the word "theory" refers to a PROVEN concept backed by evidence and repeated observation. There is absolutely NO evidence or repeated observation to back up creationism. None whatsoever.
The people who don't vote have the right idea, though not necessarily for their reasons. Voting is irrelevant because of, inter alia:
(a) institutionalized vote fraud,
(b) our problems being commercial in nature, thus being unsolvable via political means--apples vs. oranges,
(c) the foolishness of looking to politicians for solutions to problems we the people are creating,
(d) the citizenship requirement for being eligible to vote, U.S. citizenship being an inferior status, and
(e) etc., etc., etc.
These people don't vote.
You know young people don't exactly have good turnouts to vote, and honestly, do you think an idiot who thought the Titanic was fiction is going to be interested or even AWARE that politics are happening?
The same type of ignorance that believes in creationism and waves off evolution.
For heaven's sake, can you restrain yourself from bashing people's beliefs for one minute?
You can't compare the two at all. Titanic = fact. Creationism/evolution = theories. Not knowing about an incredibly well-known shipwreck does not equate to believing/disbelieving a theory.
Since then nothing can surprise me.
Humanity is doomed.
I wonder if these are the same people who don't believe men have walked on the Moon.