Myths about australia?

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Iceman

One myth about Australia is that Australian's talk Australian slang all the time. Like throw another shrimp on the Barbie. What Americans don't understand is that Australians don't call those little crustaceans shrimp they call them prawns and in the Paul Hogan television ad he uses the word shrimp because that is what Americans call them because it is a television ad made for Americans. And not many Australians would barbecue prawns because they are very expensive to buy.

And most of the television programmes on Australian TV these days are American so Australian's are starting to use American words like bathroom instead of toilet.

And I doubt their would be anyone like Crocodile Dundee in the Australian Outback because it doesn't matter where you live in Australia you need to earn money and pay taxes and you would need to visit a large town at least once a year.

Ken E

Firstly some people seem to think Australia is small, we see questions like "What is the time / temperature in Australia?" very often, Australia has thee time zones and the climate extends from alpine to tropical to arid to Mediterranean to cool temperate.

There are dangerous spiders and snakes but they are not all over the place, there are no kangaroos all over the place, most of have never seen a platypus and many have never seen a koala outside a zoo. Many of us thought that Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) was a clown.

There are plenty of people like Crocodile Dundee - they don't have his adventures but they are sardonic and laconic.

Australia is the most urbanised country on Earth, but we do not all live in Sydney. Apart from Sydney, Australians live in Melbourne (which is nearly as big) also in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Canberra, Darwin and a lot of towns like Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Ballarat, Bendigo, Dubbo and a lot more with populations running from 1200 to 120,000.

Transportation of convicts to Australia ended about 1860. Beginning in 1851 a gold rush which was every bit as big as the one to California brought many free people here. More that had arrived in the previous 63 years. Even while convicts were being sent here, there were more free settles than convicts coming. Since 1860 immigration has never stopped.

Not all the immigrants were English, Irish or Scots, there are many people of Dutch, German, Greek and Italian origin here and now people from India, Malaysia and Africa are arriving. There was a wave of Vietnamese people coming here in the 1970s.

Most of the convicts were sent here for real crimes, but some (a very few) were political. In the very early days many of the crimes they were sent for were very minor - like shoplifting. But not all. Some of them were professional career criminals.
Most of the serious violent criminals did not come here, they were executed.

Not all convicts worked in chains, this was only used on the persistent re-offenders. One convict (Wills) arrived in the 1790s with his free wife on the same ship. When they arrived, he was released into her custody and they started a business near where the Opera House now stands. Look up "Dr. Redfern" and "Francis Greenway" for information on two other convicts.

Another silly myth is that things like telephones and electricity are recent. The first telephone exchange was installed in Melbourne about 1883, less than 10 years after Bell invented the telephone. The town of Tamworth was the first one in the southern hemisphere to have electric street lighting and one of the first in the world. The first motor cars arrived here in about 1897 though a few steam operated ones go back to the 1880s.

Sandi

I live in Australia so I can't answer but what an interesting assignment. I look forward to reading the answers to your question and maybe having a laugh. Best of luck with your assignment.

SafariCalamari

A pen pal i had in switzerland asked me if we rode kangaroos to school, and what my pet kangaroo's name was. I laughed very hard at that.
Another one that would be good for an assignment like that would be the construction of australians in movies that the rest of the world will see, eg Crocodile Dundee, Kangaroo Jack, those sorts of movies and the accents they always give us! How infuriating!

miss_princess

ok i think these guys are all off the mark your from australia right? and you asking what other countrys think about australia right? i think these people dont think before they start to write

Steshha

lol some people think that we ride around on kangaroos. and that we have pet koalas and kanagaroos in the backyard.

wombat4412

OK a lot of us more so out in the outback use slang but no we do not have kangaroo,s as pet or the crocs are only unfriendly to tourists guess what they will bite anyone sydney is our biggest city then melbourne known as the garden states the slang words ok fags are cigarette tomatoe sause is kethup jam is jelly but most of all i will say this we are a very friendly country & most of the time will not kick you when your down

â˜ºâ™¥Logan Charles due June 20thâ™¥â˜º

dont know any myths, but FYI heaps of ppl do hav roos as pets i have 1, her name is stacey, my boy friend shot her mother when we were out getting dog food.... lol

david d

Fact: The most insulting thing you can say in Australian is 'Rack off' eg:
--"Bonza mate, you've burnt all the shrip on the barbie"
------"Rack off mate, ya flamin Drongo"

(I learn australian from Alf Stewart).

neo

australians are a bunch of convicts which have come from europe and this is not a myth

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