Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Anzac Day 2006
Thanks to my recent vacation and chaos with the new house I completely forgot that 25 April was Anzac Day. Since Australia is my adopted home I usually try to stay on top of important holidays such as this.
The Anzac tradition - the ideals of courage, endurance and mateship that are still relevant today was established on 25 April 1915 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
It was the start of a campaign that lasted eight months and resulted in some 25,000 Australian casualties, including 8700 who were killed or died of wounds or disease.
The men who served on the Gallipoli Peninsula created a legend, adding the word 'Anzac' to the Australian and New Zealand vocabularies and creating the notion of the Anzac spirit.
So if you missed it yesterday, go hug your local Aussie.
And for fun, here are a few Aussie slang terms from my Aussie-English translation book. With a little training you too can sound like this: "I think I'll be a fruit loop today and drink a slab before I go and chuck a yonnie at some greenies and cut lunch commandos. If I miss my ride on the booze bus, I'll go hit the thunder box and meet up with my sheila, who is quite the earbasher."
Bomb-happy: affected mentally by battle, or shell shocked
Booze bus: police vehicle used for catching drunk drivers
Chuck a yonnie: Throw a stone
Cut lunch Commandos: School cadets
Dinky-di: the real thing, genuine
Earbashing: nagging, non-stop chatter
Fruit loop: fool
Greenie: environmentalist
Icy pole: popsicle, lollypop
Middy: 285 ml beer glass in New South Wales
No-hoper: somebody who'll never do well
Oldies: parents - "I'll have to ask my oldies"
Rage: party
Sheila: a woman
Slab: a carton of 24 bottles or cans of beer
Stubby: a beer bottle
Thunder box: toilet
Woop Woop: The Boondocks... "he lives in Woop Woop"
Weekend Warriors: Army Reserve personnel
Whacko: You beauty! (an exclamation.)
posted by El Capitan at 10:40 AM
1 Comments:
Matthew said...
Happy ANZAC day. Though I'm not sure about the casualties. I read somewhere it was more like 10-000 estimated.
4:02 PM