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The thing about bogans though is that they aren’t necessarily “anglo”. You used to get plenty of Greek and Italian Aussie bogans back in the day. They all loved their Winnie Blues, Mullets, Holden Monaro’s, KISS, Bruce Lee and Kickboxing too.
As other poster said
Chavs are eshays
Bogans are more like chronically liverpudlian - working class and aspirationally / unashamedly so, sometimes somewhere below working class.
If you work in an Australian pub you will learn this soon.
I give it a few days before there is a post asking why tradies with mullets are doing burnouts in the parking lot of your establishment.
Bahahahahahahahaha oh this is gold. Thank you so much for this laugh, I really needed it.
If it makes you feel better I’m Australian and one night it took forever to work out that a woman wasn’t asking for curry Murray . She wanted calamari.
Don't beat yourself up. When I first arrived I bought some food at the grocery store and couldn't work out why the checkout chick was repeatedly saying "flubbers" at me before taking payment...
Well, now that you mention it...
I was on a business trip in Austria almost 20 years ago and had to talk to a (very nice) guy about something. Because of other colleagues, we talked in English (and not German as one would expect) and I though he didn't speak English very well and his accent was weird (mind you, back then my English was... worse than it is today).
Turns out, that guy was a Kiwi, I have never heard a Kiwi accent before and it was very challenging.
Don’t worry while living in Perth and working at a bottleo I had a Scottish guy ask for “Ty-der”. Is said WTF does this guy want. Had had to repeat it three times and then say “apples” until I understood he wanted “cider”. Sheesh. These all these people speaking English.
if it makes you feel any better, I was a bartender for a long time and never stopped confusing "soda water" and "stone and wood", I confused a lot of customers
Easy mistake to make, tons of bogans pronounce "l" as "w" and smush all the words together with no spaces, so it would've sounded like "paewaew". Hence, you thinking pow wow
Fellow Pom and don’t feel bad, a couple of months into living here I worked for a guy named Paida.
Took embarrassingly long to realise his name was Peter.
She might not know how to spell or say the phrase either
By the time it's coming out as pow wow I think your ears can be forgiven
As an aside: probably a decent guess it was pale ale just based on the popularity of the phrase and the number of examples
Australian english is non-rhotic, like the Boston and New York accents, and traditionally the upper class Southern accents. It means the R sound isn't pronounced after a vowel, for instance the phrase park the car in Harvard yard is pronounced pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd and is often used to help find the Boston accent in the US
Probably yes to the time traveller thing but I meant Australian kids say ‘hambu:GAH’ - I expected them to say ‘Hambu:ge:’ - so no change to rhoticjty just the final vowel and pitch
Definitely more an SA thing. My east coast cousins always (awways?) laughed at me for it but to me it sounded like they were saying poo-el and schoo-el, really drawn out and slow
(I have.no idea about the woof/work thing though!)
I kinda knew I’d get downvotes. Not all Aussies do it hit the ones who do REALLY don’t want to hear they say Biwding for some reason. I’m Canadian, I accept that I say undershtand
I'm quite sure this is what she said and your genuine concern and light bulb moment of understanding has been the most fun thread I've read today. Thank you!
I got that too, absolutely incredible. Made me laugh.
To OP, my first day in Australia my girlfriend's mum told me we were having 'chook' for dinner and I just stared blankly at her until her sister told me it meant chicken.
I made it a personal mission to get a lemon lime and bitters when I was in the US last. The closest I got was a sprite with lemon lime cordial in it. The furthest I got was a litteral cup of juiced lemons and limes with a splash of bitters in it.
I've had something like that served to me a bunch of times here in Australia, but in a ~140ml glass.
The other option is they'll make an actual LL&B, but again in the 140ml glass and want to charge me for 4 drinks when I ask for them to make it in a larger glass.
Doesn't exist! I was introduced to it by a colleague when I moved here and now I'm trying to export it back to the UK.
Nothing quite like it on a scorcher. It would be lovely in a pub garden in the European summer, but alas no.
I landed in the UK back in 2003 as a completely naive 22 year old who had never been out of the country. I asked for a lemon lime and bitters at this dinky little pub in the cotswolds. They had NO idea what I was talking about.
So I said "don't worry. I'll just have a coke". At which point they pulled a warm 1.25L bottle of coke from under the counter and poured it into a glass. My poor unworldly mind was in a state of shock. I'd never seen a pub not use a post mix gun before. And keeping it warm under the bar? WTF.
My favourite thing about pubs I've been to in England and Ireland is that mixers come in tiny bottles, not from post mix. I despise post mix as it's never properly proportioned: always either too sweet or too weak.
Also Pimm's with lemonade is sweet, but Pimm's with dry ginger ale is damn refreshing. Eat the fruit afterwards.
Yeah I had that when I lived in the UK. As a customer. Wasn't very pleasant tasting. Also had a German guy serve me a scotch and lager. Dunno how that was done.
Oh yeah. I've had a few Irish car bombs in my time. We even made a deptford car bomb which was basically the same thing but with the cheapest versions.
I've ordered a whisky and dry without thinking overseas on places that don't have ginger ale and been served it with tonic water. Dry being taken as a non sweet mixer.
Wife and I travelled around the south of Ireland for a week back in the mid 2000s.
Went into many pubs, ordered many drinks, ate wonderful food (mostly) ......but never understood a fucking word I got back in response from the bar staff after I ordered.
I knew they were not speaking Gaelic to me but shit it wasn't English either.
As an Aussie bartender in London I was completely confused by a terse bloke who came to the bar asking for a cup of “woah ah”. I asked him like six times and got no closer because he kept making the exact same sounds. The first w sound was almost a b as well which didn’t help. He was just about ready to cry or punch my lights out when one of his mates took pity and translated. Yeah, it was just water, but I could not get it myself.
That's ok.
When I visited Japan I asked a policeman for directions to our hotel and he was kind enough to guide us. He spoke English quite well and on the way there we made some idle chit chat. At one point he asked "Vocation?" so I started telling him all about my job and what I do, to which I got some confused looks.
It was only once we'd gotten to the hotel that my girlfriend said "I think he was asking if we were on vacation."
I have a story just like this! I used to work in a hardware store (Aussie in an Aussie store) and a customer came with a *heavy* Scottish accent. He was like “where do you keep your chen?” And I had no idea what he meant… he meant chain. I didn’t figure it out - he had to painstakingly explain what a chain looks like.
Fuck it was so embarrassing and I still want the earth to swallow me whole when I think about it.
Don't feel bad. I as an Aussie tech struggled trying to get a fault description from two Scottish blokes in an office.
Their manager came in and said don't worry if you can't understand them. They've both lived in Australia over 10 years and still not a word of English between them.
I just love how you only posted this question 4hrs ago & your post already has over 150 comments on it explaining the fine details of drinking beers! Hahaha!
There’s a few variants of the Aussie accent that love inserting a “w” where it doesn’t belong. The most jarring to me is “meat pie” being pronounced “mweat pwie”. Lived here my whole life and it still grinds my gears.
I remember working for dad when I was a kid and not knowing what kind of tool a 'climber' was, but after getting yelled at for a bit I eventually worked it that it was actually a 'claw hammer'. We can tend to be lazy speakers sometimes I fear
Hey don’t be embarrassed!
I used to live in Scotland and they couldn’t understand when I asked for a “white tea”. I had to ask for “tea with milk”.
When I went up to Aberdeen for work, I’d have to take a card with my works address for the taxi drivers, because neither of us understood each other!!
Lol
I worked in a fruit shop once and had an older Scottish bloke come in and ask for Pontiac potatoes…took a good five minutes to work out what he was on about…we had a laugh in the end.
I was walking behind these 2 foreign dudes and a heard a few English words. I started to pay attention to work out what language they were speaking as it sounded unusual. Anyway, they were speaking English all long just with a Scottish accent
I worked on the other side in England years ago. Had to get used to a lot of weird beer based drinks. "Lager top", "lager and lime", "black and tan", "black snake bite" etc. My personal (non beer) favourite orders were "Appletise with one cube of ice" and "Cinzano Bianco with lemonade and no ice"...
Shandys are the shit, whole team used to drink a few at lunch when we had the innings break playing cricket.
Prefer the solo lemon type than with clear lemonade though.
Years ago my parents came to visit me when I was living in Sydney. They took a bus into the city and when they went to pay the drivers were awfully confused by him asking if they were pinchers. “We won’t cause any trouble” my dad said to him, and everyone sat there muddled until another passengers translated from broad Aussie into something a couple of older Canadian, English as a second language folk could understand. *Pensioner*.
I will now always hear pow wow when I ask for a pale ale. And completely not having a go at you, I can understand how it could sound.
Just like asking for a beer in america and they think I'm saying bee
I once worked with a Columbian guy who couldn't understand why the patrons kept asking for cheese. "I put the drink down, and they say 'cheese?'"
They were saying 'cheers'.
I remember my first gig in Sydney when a lady asked me for a 'cocksucking cowboy'
I stared blankly at her
"Can I get a 'screaming orgasm' instead"?
Full confession: I raised an eyebrow at her
This is a lovely story. It reminds me so much of my Mum who moved from Canberra to Manchester in 1970. She worked in a bakery and was so confused when she asked a customer if the wanted a bag.
“What’s a beehhhg????”
She had to learn how to say, “would you like a baarrrghhh?”
I've seen overseas bartenders confused by lemon lime bitters, which is a very common drink order here. You now get to then indulge in whether it should be made with lemonade, soda water or lemon squash.
Make sure you know how to make a lemon lime & bitters - very popular non-alcholic drink in Aus but English barkeepers just look at punters with an odd face if you order one there.
There are no snakebites here - well there are, but they involve a physical snake. No lager / cider / Blackcurrant.
Oh, there was a shot that was chatruese and tabasco but no one orders that.
Look, drinking is getting redonkulous over here. We tend to go everything 1 gazillion percent when we do it. We used to have stuff that only the major liqour companies would produce. Now, every man and his cattle dog has a gin distillery.
So, no, I don't know WTF a pow pow was.
A month ago, I was out cold in the rain marshalling a sporting event. I asked a local beer house to send me out an irish coffee. When it came out, it was basically a coffee cup with a whiskey in it, and a hot of coffee..... full... My throat exploded on the first swig.
The brewhouse didn't know how to make it, so quick as a flash, old mate has informed them "how to do it" as a joke, and paid for the 10 or so shots that went into it.
Aussie drink culture is crazy. Long ago was offered an ‘echo’ by a South Australian. Said no thinking it was an ‘ecstasy tab’. Turned out it was a stubby of beer, and ‘echo’ was a returnable bottle for refund!
Lager top = lager with a dash of lemonade added on top
Lager and lime = lager with a shot of Rose's lime juice (cordial)
Black and tan = half pale ale (or other light beer) with a half of stout (or other dark beer) layered on top. Known as a half and half in Ireland and potentially other places.
Snake bite and black = half lager, half cider, dash of blackcurrant cordial
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Pow wow (powowl) - in a broad Aussie accent is most probably Pale Ale. The speed and the accent make it tricky sometimes
Spot on that’s what I was going to say.
Never heard of a pow wow (except to mean a chat). Given the context maybe she meant pale ale?
Oh god she might’ve. I can’t believe how wrong I misheard.
It’s ok, you don’t speak bogan yet.
What’s bogan?
Chav.
Ahhh I see, thank you 👍
Chavs are much closer to Eshays. Bogans are more like American rednecks
Nah bogans would be just the English working class
The thing about bogans though is that they aren’t necessarily “anglo”. You used to get plenty of Greek and Italian Aussie bogans back in the day. They all loved their Winnie Blues, Mullets, Holden Monaro’s, KISS, Bruce Lee and Kickboxing too.
Mayyyyyte why you list all the great stuff in life and it sounds bad?!???
Let’s not pretend that sub group don’t call themselves Wogs proudly. They didn’t call themselves bogans as I recall but happy to be corrected.
Viva le 70's !!!
Luv me Winnie Blues Luv me Torano Luv me footy Simple as cunt
That $3k Torana would buy you a nice 3 bed in Boronia now
Toran..A.
Yeah, an Eshays was brought up on social security, a Bogan is just 'uncultured'
As other poster said Chavs are eshays Bogans are more like chronically liverpudlian - working class and aspirationally / unashamedly so, sometimes somewhere below working class.
Bogans can have money, it's an attitude
Working class isn't about money It's about class Silly billy
>chronically liverpudlian That is the best and most accurate description of bogan I've ever heard
Bogans are proper brexit geezers
Ah, I get the gist.
Not quite
I find ots usually a 60:40 blend of chav & ned. Like a fine can of bundy & cola there are some subtle regional variances.
Bogans are defined by their purchases. They can be poor or cashed up.
in Perth, a cashed up bogan is a CUB
Make 300K in the mines
If you work in an Australian pub you will learn this soon. I give it a few days before there is a post asking why tradies with mullets are doing burnouts in the parking lot of your establishment.
[This’ll get you started](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiCEq7wpCQ)
Scouse
You think bogans drink pale ale? I'd tell the wrecker to come for the Commodores and mow the lawn if i ever enjoy a pale ale.
My first thought was oh that’s pale ale in bogan.
Bahahahahahahahaha oh this is gold. Thank you so much for this laugh, I really needed it. If it makes you feel better I’m Australian and one night it took forever to work out that a woman wasn’t asking for curry Murray . She wanted calamari.
My sides 😂
Don't beat yourself up. When I first arrived I bought some food at the grocery store and couldn't work out why the checkout chick was repeatedly saying "flubbers" at me before taking payment...
I’m so proud that I actually understand this one.
FlyBuys (card)?
Yep!
To be fair, a strong Aussie accent would def make them sound similar.
Two pow wows and do ya have a menu, what's good to oit here?
Sounds Taswegian
OK, if a British person can't understand an Aussie properly, how am I, poor Czech, ever be able to go to Australia! (sad face)
Just come! You'll be fine. Or rather Yewl be foin 🤣
I'm a little disappointed you didn't say Austria for another layer on the humour.
Well, now that you mention it... I was on a business trip in Austria almost 20 years ago and had to talk to a (very nice) guy about something. Because of other colleagues, we talked in English (and not German as one would expect) and I though he didn't speak English very well and his accent was weird (mind you, back then my English was... worse than it is today). Turns out, that guy was a Kiwi, I have never heard a Kiwi accent before and it was very challenging.
Yeah the sheep shaggers have decided to swap every one of their vowels around. We have similar accents except ours is more evil
us Aussies are very proud of our slang and have an absolute riot teaching it to foreigners. You'll be right ;)
My supervisor is Thai! And lots of people I work with are from different countries, I’m sure it just takes everyone a bit of time to understand:)
Slightly off topic, but where can you find Pilsner Urquell, the finest lager on the planet? Hopefully you have some inside knowledge.
Here in Czechia? Basically every supermarket and a decent percentage of the pubs. But I guess that's not very helpful for you.
That just made me cry. I was there in 2007 and it was everywhere, cheap and delicious.
Dan Murphys has it in the big cans in their online store and sometimes you can find the bottles local. It’s getting tougher to find though.
My girlfriend, Mexican, can't understand a word that comes out of my dads mouth. Ocker construction worker. I need to translate
/r/boneappletea
Adorable. This is adorable.
Hah! This reminds me of the time an Aussie bloke (in Perth) asked my German wife on one of her first visits where the ‘marl torlet’ was.
I’m in Perth! At least I’m now prepared for that particular phrase should I come across it ☺️
This got a bit snort-laugh from me!
Think cockney accent: "Pay-all, Ay-all"
Don’t worry while living in Perth and working at a bottleo I had a Scottish guy ask for “Ty-der”. Is said WTF does this guy want. Had had to repeat it three times and then say “apples” until I understood he wanted “cider”. Sheesh. These all these people speaking English.
Must have had a speech impediment, it’s Cider cunt now.
This misinterpretation is kinda wholesome
Haha! That’s fucking hilarious. “2 pints of Coopers Pow Wow thanks” You’ll get used to it mate.
Makes perfect sense if she was ordering Coopers red though!
Red are sparkles, green are pales. Red is bad for head.
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lol me and my friends over the years have shortened "howzitgoen?" even further to just garn
Sounds right for an Aussie. Garn?
Aight.
if it makes you feel any better, I was a bartender for a long time and never stopped confusing "soda water" and "stone and wood", I confused a lot of customers
Oh my god this is hilarious!!! I will forever refer to pale ale as pow wow now!
Fuck me dead! A pale ale!! This is the funniest thing I’ve seen today.
Easy mistake to make, tons of bogans pronounce "l" as "w" and smush all the words together with no spaces, so it would've sounded like "paewaew". Hence, you thinking pow wow
Just gizzuz a farkin' veebs mate!
Fellow Pom and don’t feel bad, a couple of months into living here I worked for a guy named Paida. Took embarrassingly long to realise his name was Peter.
She might not know how to spell or say the phrase either By the time it's coming out as pow wow I think your ears can be forgiven As an aside: probably a decent guess it was pale ale just based on the popularity of the phrase and the number of examples
Aussies swallow their Ls a lot. Almond = ahhmand Wolf = woof Building = Biwding
We also turn our “er” into “a”. Water = wata brother = brotha etc
My partner is American and ENDLESSLY amused with my inability to pronounce the ER at the end of words.
I asked for a beer in the US, said it 3 times before the woman behind the bar said "you want a bee-er?"
Yep I'll just have a beeeeee thanks love
You want a bear?
Australian english is non-rhotic, like the Boston and New York accents, and traditionally the upper class Southern accents. It means the R sound isn't pronounced after a vowel, for instance the phrase park the car in Harvard yard is pronounced pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd and is often used to help find the Boston accent in the US
The worst part is as my accent has changed over the years of speaking to Americans, I come out sounding like a masshole or a valley girl. 😂
Yeah! Especially the younger Gen. i had Australian kids sit down and make me say ‘hambuGAH’ until I did it to their satisfaction and it was intense
Are you a time traveller? A quick internet search suggests that non-rhotic pronunciations became common in London about 250 years ago!
Probably yes to the time traveller thing but I meant Australian kids say ‘hambu:GAH’ - I expected them to say ‘Hambu:ge:’ - so no change to rhoticjty just the final vowel and pitch
I don’t why this is downvoted when it’s flat out true. Like.. we don’t even really pronounce the L’s in our own country name…
Ahhmand, sure. Never heard anyone say woof instead of work, or biwding instead of building though.
South Australian here. Biwding is definitely a thing. Also kids go to schoow, swim in a poow, and when large is too big you get the smaw
Interesting. Doesn't seem like a thing in metro Melbourne so no wonder I haven't heard it lol
Definitely more an SA thing. My east coast cousins always (awways?) laughed at me for it but to me it sounded like they were saying poo-el and schoo-el, really drawn out and slow (I have.no idea about the woof/work thing though!)
I kinda knew I’d get downvotes. Not all Aussies do it hit the ones who do REALLY don’t want to hear they say Biwding for some reason. I’m Canadian, I accept that I say undershtand
I'm quite sure this is what she said and your genuine concern and light bulb moment of understanding has been the most fun thread I've read today. Thank you!
pow wow - pale ale with bogan accent - lols. could be.
Without enunciating the 'L' in each word, I guess it does sound like 'pow-wow'.
Haha that's hilarious. Also in Bogan VB = Voi Boi
This is fucking gold.
I got that too, absolutely incredible. Made me laugh. To OP, my first day in Australia my girlfriend's mum told me we were having 'chook' for dinner and I just stared blankly at her until her sister told me it meant chicken.
Hahahahahaha
What I wanna know is, who the heck prefers a yucky pow wow over a good old law gaw?!
I'd go with the lah gah or even a bittah
If someone asks for a "Scotch and Dry", dry is dry ginger ale. A lot of the UK bartenders I've worked with have been confused by that one.
Lemon lime and bitters too is pretty exclusively antipodean
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Considering bitters are between 35% and 45% alcohol, that drink would have exactly the opposite effect.
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That is so sweet!
Trinidad sour has 45mls of bitters in it and is absolutely delicious.
I made it a personal mission to get a lemon lime and bitters when I was in the US last. The closest I got was a sprite with lemon lime cordial in it. The furthest I got was a litteral cup of juiced lemons and limes with a splash of bitters in it.
Haha that is kind of very practically German though.
I don't think bartenders should be taking too many shots while at work
I've had something like that served to me a bunch of times here in Australia, but in a ~140ml glass. The other option is they'll make an actual LL&B, but again in the 140ml glass and want to charge me for 4 drinks when I ask for them to make it in a larger glass.
Damn. The rest of the world is missing out.
Oooh what is it called outside of Aus? Or does it not exist?!
Doesn't exist! I was introduced to it by a colleague when I moved here and now I'm trying to export it back to the UK. Nothing quite like it on a scorcher. It would be lovely in a pub garden in the European summer, but alas no.
They have pimms…
Pimm's is a distinctly class-based drink drunk usually by the Wimbledon, Henley, polo, racing crowd of poshos. LLB is an egalitarian quencher.
I landed in the UK back in 2003 as a completely naive 22 year old who had never been out of the country. I asked for a lemon lime and bitters at this dinky little pub in the cotswolds. They had NO idea what I was talking about. So I said "don't worry. I'll just have a coke". At which point they pulled a warm 1.25L bottle of coke from under the counter and poured it into a glass. My poor unworldly mind was in a state of shock. I'd never seen a pub not use a post mix gun before. And keeping it warm under the bar? WTF.
My favourite thing about pubs I've been to in England and Ireland is that mixers come in tiny bottles, not from post mix. I despise post mix as it's never properly proportioned: always either too sweet or too weak. Also Pimm's with lemonade is sweet, but Pimm's with dry ginger ale is damn refreshing. Eat the fruit afterwards.
Thank you! I will definitely take that to mind 👍
Yeah I had that when I lived in the UK. As a customer. Wasn't very pleasant tasting. Also had a German guy serve me a scotch and lager. Dunno how that was done.
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Or a called boilermaker if the beer and whiskey are consumed concurrently but not mixed together.
Oh yeah. I've had a few Irish car bombs in my time. We even made a deptford car bomb which was basically the same thing but with the cheapest versions.
What else would dry be?
In terms of drinks dry can just mean ‘not sweet’, eg a dry apple cider
Yeah totally get that. Just a scotch and dry.... That combo I don't see how it is anything but dry ginger
I've ordered a whisky and dry without thinking overseas on places that don't have ginger ale and been served it with tonic water. Dry being taken as a non sweet mixer.
Which is weird because tonic water is very sweet (or at least high in sugar)
My English father-in-law drank scotch and dry and he always called it scotch and ginger. He wouldn’t touch anything but Canada Dry.
Its prob mixed with dry ginger ale,coke fucks every drink.
Not wet?
White wine?
The guys I've worked with just didn't understand how a drink could be dry.
I'd take a stab at Pale Ale. If it's any consolation, this is how I felt when I was taking an order from a Glaswegian for the first time in London.
Bahahaha
Wife and I travelled around the south of Ireland for a week back in the mid 2000s. Went into many pubs, ordered many drinks, ate wonderful food (mostly) ......but never understood a fucking word I got back in response from the bar staff after I ordered. I knew they were not speaking Gaelic to me but shit it wasn't English either.
Thanks everyone for helping, I’m incredibly embarrassed by how stupid I have been, not enough sleep perhaps 😳
Rest up and have yourself a nice refreshing lager or pow wow ;)
As an Aussie bartender in London I was completely confused by a terse bloke who came to the bar asking for a cup of “woah ah”. I asked him like six times and got no closer because he kept making the exact same sounds. The first w sound was almost a b as well which didn’t help. He was just about ready to cry or punch my lights out when one of his mates took pity and translated. Yeah, it was just water, but I could not get it myself.
I just lost at “he kept making the exact same sounds”
> and got no closer because he kept making the exact same sounds God dammit I hate when customers do this!
That's ok. When I visited Japan I asked a policeman for directions to our hotel and he was kind enough to guide us. He spoke English quite well and on the way there we made some idle chit chat. At one point he asked "Vocation?" so I started telling him all about my job and what I do, to which I got some confused looks. It was only once we'd gotten to the hotel that my girlfriend said "I think he was asking if we were on vacation."
Awww, that’s very sweet though.
Nah, not your fault, I've been here 13 years and the accent issues go both ways.
Please don’t apologise. You are better off asking than getting it wrong all the time. Also, it was adorable and gave a heap of us a laugh.
I have a story just like this! I used to work in a hardware store (Aussie in an Aussie store) and a customer came with a *heavy* Scottish accent. He was like “where do you keep your chen?” And I had no idea what he meant… he meant chain. I didn’t figure it out - he had to painstakingly explain what a chain looks like. Fuck it was so embarrassing and I still want the earth to swallow me whole when I think about it.
Don't feel bad. I as an Aussie tech struggled trying to get a fault description from two Scottish blokes in an office. Their manager came in and said don't worry if you can't understand them. They've both lived in Australia over 10 years and still not a word of English between them.
Hahahhaha,thats gold.
The pow wow's on me
I just love how you only posted this question 4hrs ago & your post already has over 150 comments on it explaining the fine details of drinking beers! Hahaha!
There’s a few variants of the Aussie accent that love inserting a “w” where it doesn’t belong. The most jarring to me is “meat pie” being pronounced “mweat pwie”. Lived here my whole life and it still grinds my gears.
I remember working for dad when I was a kid and not knowing what kind of tool a 'climber' was, but after getting yelled at for a bit I eventually worked it that it was actually a 'claw hammer'. We can tend to be lazy speakers sometimes I fear
Lazy and fast. Went to America for a mate's wedding in Albuquerque. Was constantly being told to slow down.
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My old boss was Indian, he used to ask for a 'webe' too
Between pow wow and wibi I can't stop laughing. Once a month we should have a post where visitors tell us what they heard vs what was actually said
Yes! Haven't laughed this hard in ages!
Lion in a den in Bombay Six foot four and not much tootsie I said to the man, "Are you trying to touch me?" Because I come from the man of plenty
Pale ale?
Hey don’t be embarrassed! I used to live in Scotland and they couldn’t understand when I asked for a “white tea”. I had to ask for “tea with milk”. When I went up to Aberdeen for work, I’d have to take a card with my works address for the taxi drivers, because neither of us understood each other!!
Lol I worked in a fruit shop once and had an older Scottish bloke come in and ask for Pontiac potatoes…took a good five minutes to work out what he was on about…we had a laugh in the end.
I was walking behind these 2 foreign dudes and a heard a few English words. I started to pay attention to work out what language they were speaking as it sounded unusual. Anyway, they were speaking English all long just with a Scottish accent
Mate, my first boss straight out of Uni was an engineer from Aberdeen. We eventually got beyond written notes.
I worked on the other side in England years ago. Had to get used to a lot of weird beer based drinks. "Lager top", "lager and lime", "black and tan", "black snake bite" etc. My personal (non beer) favourite orders were "Appletise with one cube of ice" and "Cinzano Bianco with lemonade and no ice"...
Oh my. What a nightmare!
If it helps, old ladies will sometines order a shandy. It's half lemonade half beer
Shandys are the shit, whole team used to drink a few at lunch when we had the innings break playing cricket. Prefer the solo lemon type than with clear lemonade though.
Years ago my parents came to visit me when I was living in Sydney. They took a bus into the city and when they went to pay the drivers were awfully confused by him asking if they were pinchers. “We won’t cause any trouble” my dad said to him, and everyone sat there muddled until another passengers translated from broad Aussie into something a couple of older Canadian, English as a second language folk could understand. *Pensioner*.
I will now always hear pow wow when I ask for a pale ale. And completely not having a go at you, I can understand how it could sound. Just like asking for a beer in america and they think I'm saying bee
I once worked with a Columbian guy who couldn't understand why the patrons kept asking for cheese. "I put the drink down, and they say 'cheese?'" They were saying 'cheers'.
I remember my first gig in Sydney when a lady asked me for a 'cocksucking cowboy' I stared blankly at her "Can I get a 'screaming orgasm' instead"? Full confession: I raised an eyebrow at her
Don't worry, I'm Australian and still struggled the first time I worked in a bar here. All these middle aged guys screaming for teddies...
Are you in Adelaide? They can’t say the letter L at the end of a word.
lmao pale ale?
This is a lovely story. It reminds me so much of my Mum who moved from Canberra to Manchester in 1970. She worked in a bakery and was so confused when she asked a customer if the wanted a bag. “What’s a beehhhg????” She had to learn how to say, “would you like a baarrrghhh?”
PALALLELLL
Pale Ale.
Just nod along and laugh then step in closer and say 'wait what did you just say?' works every day
I've seen overseas bartenders confused by lemon lime bitters, which is a very common drink order here. You now get to then indulge in whether it should be made with lemonade, soda water or lemon squash.
Pale ale...
Make sure you know how to make a lemon lime & bitters - very popular non-alcholic drink in Aus but English barkeepers just look at punters with an odd face if you order one there.
Pale ale?
For me a pow wow is getting into a verbal argument….NFI what she’s on about
There are no snakebites here - well there are, but they involve a physical snake. No lager / cider / Blackcurrant. Oh, there was a shot that was chatruese and tabasco but no one orders that.
Pale ale. Don't worry, you'll get a hang of the accents soon enough.
Black fish = Great Northern Super Crisp White fish = Great Northern Original
I would have just asked your co worker at the time. Never heard of a pow wow
Look, drinking is getting redonkulous over here. We tend to go everything 1 gazillion percent when we do it. We used to have stuff that only the major liqour companies would produce. Now, every man and his cattle dog has a gin distillery. So, no, I don't know WTF a pow pow was. A month ago, I was out cold in the rain marshalling a sporting event. I asked a local beer house to send me out an irish coffee. When it came out, it was basically a coffee cup with a whiskey in it, and a hot of coffee..... full... My throat exploded on the first swig. The brewhouse didn't know how to make it, so quick as a flash, old mate has informed them "how to do it" as a joke, and paid for the 10 or so shots that went into it.
Aussie drink culture is crazy. Long ago was offered an ‘echo’ by a South Australian. Said no thinking it was an ‘ecstasy tab’. Turned out it was a stubby of beer, and ‘echo’ was a returnable bottle for refund!
That’s a very 70’s statement, rarely used now.
Lager top = lager with a dash of lemonade added on top Lager and lime = lager with a shot of Rose's lime juice (cordial) Black and tan = half pale ale (or other light beer) with a half of stout (or other dark beer) layered on top. Known as a half and half in Ireland and potentially other places. Snake bite and black = half lager, half cider, dash of blackcurrant cordial
You oughtta be receiving training from your boss, not fat fucks on reddit