Languages 101

Heather writes...

What kinda title is that? I am chuckling just thinking about it! It started at the Australian Open. Which is what I originally wanted to write about but realized there is a whole lots more wrapped up in it.

The Oz Open was so much better than I expected. Fabulous venue, loads of amazing tennis, but the best part was THE CROWDS, the fans, they were all exceptional.

It started when I went to my first day, the first day of the tournament. I had rather last minute-ish bought myself some exceptional seats. 5th row in the shade, close to the friends and family box, who ever knew how good it could be? I was lucky, all of us sitting in the area speculated that they had been held and released last minute and we all got lucky. I already had tickets for 3 days in that section and managed to trade in my bad tickets on other days for good ones like that. Rod Laver seats include general admission access to the side courts and I wandered alot as well as enjoying the posh seats.

Oz seems to be more multicultural than the Americas or even London. Every player from every far off nation had multitudes of supporters. The cheering in all those languages! Croatians, unbelievable when I crowded onto a side court to watch some young Croat and the crowds had to fight through. Israelies, Italians, Americans, Serbians, Russians, Chinese, Spanish, oh it is endless. But who knew there were so many French people in Melbourne? That first day when I watched on the Rod Laver Court with great interest as Andrew Murray lost to a very unknown French player, who would have thought what the end of the 2 weeks would culminate in, that Tsonga would in fact go all the way to the finals, and that poor me would be stuck hearing so many permutations of "allez-y" that I will be investing in good quality ear plugs. Almost every match I saw was like a Davis Cup match, and some matches the crowds were in a frenzy that they began escorting some particularily zealous supporters out of the arenas.

Now, this takes us to the Ozzies in particular. ozzie ozzie ozzie oi oi oi. You have heard of Lleyton Hewitt? The infamous match that ran til 3am? Well it is Ok if you haven't. But I am sure you can imagine how "enthusiastic" (to put it mildly) that the Ozzies are about their sporting heroes. It puts myself and all Canadians to shame, this fervour that they have. It is beyond.

Ok, I will make a few more observations about sporting matches, and then I will continue with language:
1) Self-catering in Oz is like a religion. The spreads people pulled out of their soft Eskies! Wine, tea, salads, spreads, desserts. It was the same at cricket, the Grand Prix. It is impressive. Soft Eskies are the way to go
2) Many teenagers and young adults attend cricket, and it becomes like a night club. Cricket? What cricket? Far more important is shouting out "you are a legend", "you are a wanker" and, my personal favourite, "tits out for the boys". Many of these teenagers and young adults are eventually ejected from the stadium for some kind of misdemeanor or another, and we enjoyed the warning messages plastered on the big screens about don't do this or that mere seconds after any of the infractions actually occur. Don't sit near these people, that is all I can say.
3) Cars going around in circles is not fun to watch and the Kiss performance afterwards was not enjoyable even though we heard it clearly from 2 miles away.
4) ozzie rules football is the other religion. We have now been to 2 matches. It is as popular as ice hockey in Canada and football in the UK, and it is a complicated sport played by hooligans. I LOVE IT!
5) at tennis I chatted with loads of interesting people including some young girls from Brisbane who come down for the whole tournament every year, a nice family from the Victorian countryside who were waiting in line for Garnier freebies because like me they arrived early that day in the hopes that the Garnier line would be short and it wasn't, and also a young Canadian Med student who it turned out was the son of a tax partner where I worked years ago and he WINCED when I said I thought his Dad was laid back.

Ok, back to language. G'day mate is not what they all say all the time. It is not so much what they say but HOW they say it, always with a playful lilt. How's it goin', no worries. There are more phrases and now sadly I am at the point where I forget what they are as I am so used to them. I must say, I chuckled to myself the first time I used "no worries" in every day conversation. Up to that point I wanted to kill anyone who said it, and then suddenly I was saying it too.

D and I, though, have found our favourite. "Good on you!" I used it once with D, and then was pondering it and then was surprised when the chef at the restaurant my boss owns, he is from Sheffield, which is in the Peak District in the UK, he used it on me! D and I laughed about it that evening and we realized how brilliant a phrase it is. It works on so many levels, as it can be genuine or tongue in cheek, or both or somewhere in between. It basically says, "Good for you, I really didn't think you were capable of doing that. And now you have in fact done that". Good on ya. Some people actually shorten it to "ONYA!"

So these Ozzies, they speak funny and even though they are very far away from the rest of the civilized world, they really don't mind and they in fact make the most of it.

More later, more to tell you about Melbourne The Cool City...