Do Australians refer to Australia as "Oz"?

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Tegan

Some people do it depends on what your saying... say I was talking to a friend over seas i might say "you should come to Oz for a visit"...
majority of the time i say Aussie "I'm and Aussie"!
People call it 'down under' alot Ive noticed because its under the equator Im guessing and pretty much as far down as you can go!?
Oz isn't offensive at all or anything we are well known for slang language and shortening or renaming almost everything we can! haha some people call us lazy but it gives us our own character I think =) just cause I say something in a different way from you doesnt make me uneducated, which is what a lot of people stereo type us by!

Elizabeth

I don't.
I personally don't know anyone who does call Australia, Oz.

We do refer to ourselves as Aussies which is pronounced Ozzie (like Ozzie Osbourne) and not Ossy.

aussieaussieaussie

Yes we do sometimes

Sparrow

Yes I come from Oz...toto is with me now!

Liz R

In Australia we shorten everything, sometimes to the point where the work is unrecognisable. We also like to add words in the middle of other words to emphasise a point "abso-fking-lutely" "a-fking-mazing".
In answer to your question, some Australians do referer to Australia as "oz" or "the land of oz", or even "down under".

ps. Very annoying when americans pronouncse Aussie "ossy", its supposed to sound like OZZY.. ahh really annoys me

Nurse Kelly

Sometimes. Some people write Oz, Aus, Aust, down under, Aussieland. Depends on the person.

cc_of_0z

I don't know which country half of these other answerers are coming from, but I constantly hear my fellow Australians call our country Oz.
I never ever hear anyone say (or write) Aus except at the Olympics or some international event that needs clarity for the foreigners. The term Oz is in as much common usage here as the term Aussie is.

It should be noted though that Oz is a slang word and would not normally be used in a more formal setting. In letters and emails to businesses etc we would use Aust. instead (but never Aus).

post edit: We spell it Oz not Aus. Wikipedia even notes it thus in the main entry for Australia (see link).

The Mouse II

NO!!!
This is NOT OZ. It is Australia or Aust.
Some people may use OZ and people oveseas seems to ask questions on Y!A using "OZ" but wereally, we don't call this country OZ.

Cheers

Spazzed out <--xoxo-->

Yeah, but we don't write it like that. We write it Aus or Aust, but we pronounce it Oz. It's hardly ever written like that. It's kinda like we write Aussie but its pronounced Ozzie.

C.C

I do. We tend to shorten everything here.

â€¢ Koala â€¢ uÊop É¹Çpun

It's Aussie, not Oz.

titch482@rocketmail.com

yeah sometimes i guess....

Carly

Well kind of..
But if i were to write or say it it would be spelt as "Aus"

Ozmaniac

It's funny. We tend to call it that on here and sometimes when talking to people when we're overseas, but don't use the term at all when speaking to other Aussies. Of course Aussie is pronounced Ozzie so I guess we do to some extent when talking about the people, but we always call our country Australia.

Mrs M

No, generally not.

Just misguided Americans call us that.

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