A Pub With No Beer: Australian slang that foreigners* misuse

On July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 By StephanieIn australia, linguistics25 Comments

There are many very important articles floating around about vital Australian slang, such as this listicle at buzzfeed and this listicle at huffpo and and this other huffpo listicle. And they are very critical to any understanding of Australia!

In fact, why don’t you watch this video for 2 minutes before we start this post. No Award and the Friends of No Award have watched this several times and cried with laughter every time.

Okay, good, great work, everyone.

This post was mostly inspired by Mad Max fandom. What Steph loves the very most about Mad Max fandom is that it’s full of grumpy Australians being really grumpy about non-Australians (mostly Americans) Getting Things Wrong. Steph is one of these Australians, all get off my lawn and get out of my car, and definitely get out of my town of 2 million people that doesn’t have a Starbucks. She’s a little bit obsessed with an epic coffee shop AU set in a small town in Australia. It has a Starbucks and a piano bar but no pub. NO PUB. Not gonna link the AU because it’s not about making fun of fanfic, it’s about making fun of Americans in general, and revelling in our own ridiculousness.

And so, for the humour and wtf of all Australians, we present:

A Pub With No Beer: Australian slang that foreigners* misuse

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An excellent and 1000% appropriate Mad Max: Fury Road fan mix

On June 26, 2015September 4, 2015 By StephanieIn australia, lists in all caps, movies, music8 Comments

By two Australians. Because what is Mad Max if not a great Aussie road trip?

Freak – silverchair
Mace Spray – The Jezabels
you can’t rely on the common man
Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil
Fang It (To Tony’s House) – Geraldine Quinn
Never Had So Much Fun – Frenzal Rhomb
Calypso – Spiderbait
Highway to Hell – AC/DC
Pace It – Magic Dirt
Someone’s taken over from where you started
Pacifier – Shihad
Smashed up on your own motorway
Cold Hard Bitch – Jet
Don’t wanna hold hands and talk about our little plans
Greg The Stop Sign – TISM
We get to do the driving, don’t choose the direction we travel
Down Again – The Superjesus
Now I’m under the sun, won’t anyone see that I’m alive
Uh Huh – Tkay Maidza
Some Kind of Bliss – Kylie Minogue
Where the Boys At – Chelsea Jane
Pretty good for a girl, huh?
Khe Sahn – Cold Chisel
So I worked across the country end to end

You can check out this entire excellent mix (completely out of order!) at YouTube:

Or you can hear it in order, but missing a couple of tracks, via Spotify. And why isn’t AC/DC on Spotify, anyway? What is this un-Australian nonsense?

Mad Max: Appropriation Road

On June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 By StephanieIn australia, media11 Comments

Here at No Award, we’re enjoying Mad Max: Fury Road. We’re inventing an AU (it’s called Mad Max: Fury Roadhouse, and it’s hilarious), we’re reading meta, we’re getting angry about world building on Tumblr. We’re taking it seriously as a commentary on our dystopic future, we’re getting grumpy about the lack of Indigenous faces, and we’re fighting with people on the internet. We’re having a lot of fun.

There are a whole bunch of posts we’re planning to make. Something something racism and the whiteness of Mad Max and the erasure of what it means to be not-white in Australia by American commenters. Something something the terribleness and inconsistency of the world building (“fang it” isn’t creative, it’s like saying something is going to the pool room!). But today we’re looking at a post from The Conversation and introducing the Tiny Mood Stephanies.

We love The Conversation here at No Award. It’s such an excellent, thoughtful, left-ish Australian national website. So many great articles! So much Australianness! Hooray!

So it’s with great interest that we encountered Stanza and deliver – the filmic poetry of Mad Max: Fury Road.

Okay, sure. Last week friend of No Award Genevieve Valentine wrote a post: The feminine desert of Mad Max: Fury Road, and we’re so into it. We want to know more about your thoughts of how great this movie is! We have been lit students and history students and we love movies and analysing this stuff! Yes! Great fun!

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