OT: City Names

Hmm, only partly right at best. Strine is simply english, Australian accented, with a bit of rhyming slang and a more pronounced drawl. (Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee is about as bad as it gets) Generally associated with lower/working class/poorly educated types. Rough bushies and so forth. Cockney would be a rough British equivalent. Most moderately well educated Aussies speak fairly classical english, in the British style and spelling useage, just with a different accent. (For instance, I write virtually in the same style I speak.) communicating :) Gross exaggeration if not downright untrue. Just a few local words and useages. Some Queenslanders tend to put "ay" at the end of every sentence - Territorian tend to use "but", Victorians say "castle" with a short "a" as in "fat" while New South Walers say it as an "ar" as "car". For practical purposes, there is no significant difference in speech between someone from Perth and someone from Brisbane assuming similar education levels etc. Compared to the differences between say, Cornish accents and Yorkshire accents in England, any differences here don't exist. If you want to know where someone is from, you usually have to ask. New Zealanders have an accent, (to us anyway) and the way they say certain words is a dead giveaway. (Fish and chips in Kiwi would be Fush and chups with the u as in "up") This accent becomes more pronounced the further south you go. But it doesn't render them incomprehensible, it's just a little different. Cheers Geoff Roberts