MRS BENNET: Someone’s finally moving into Netherfield!
ELIZABETH: Really? I thought they were going to tear that down and build a Red Rooster.
MR BENNETT: When the sailors come to town you all act like a pack of flaming galahs! No daughter of mine will be going to schoolies on the Gold Coast! But if you’re very good, Kitty, in a few years you might earn yourself a Blue Light Disco.
ELIZABETH: Bingo has the hots for you, Jane, for sure.
BINGLEY: Isn’t Jane a stunner?
DARCY: I don’t want to use the b-word but…
LYDIA: BURN OUT COMPETITION IN THE CAR PARK, NOW!
DARCY: Jesus H Christ Bingley they’re the biggest bogans I’ve ever seen, you can’t marry into that, you drive a beemer.
ELIZABETH: Wickham! What are you doing here?
WICKHAM: Ehh, chucked a sickie.
LYDIA: Bingo promised us a party! It’ll be super grouse – just like a B and S! I’m hoping for some goon, a bang-up barbie, and a pash.
KITTY: And some fairy bread and a dancefloor.
LYDIA: And a pash.
KITTY: And a pash.
DARCY: Oh, you met Wickham?
ELIZABETH: Yeah, and he didn’t call me a bloody bogan.
DARCY: Well he’s – I – fuck him. *flounces off*
ELIZABETH: What a sooky la la.
MR COLLINS: Cousin Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, nah, mate.
ELIZABETH: Charlotte, he’s a bloody wowser! He’s gonna make you go to church every Sunday and not just at Christmas, and how’s he gonna feel about your Sunday shift at Coles?
CHARLOTTE: Liz, not all of us can get into uni, yeah?
ELIZABETH: But he DRIVES A FORD and wears SOCKS WITH SANDALS.
LADY CATHERINE: And when you’re out in the sun, you must always wear a hat, and a rashie. And trust the life savers, they’re very trained. Although I do wish they’d change the colour of the life savers; red and yellow is simply not my colour. If I were to be a life saver – as a child I’m sure I would have been a very strong swimmer, you know, and I do know the correct way to exit a rip – I should insist on a blue or a green. I’m more of a winter, and so is the Bay, you know.
COLONEL FITZWILLIAM, ASIDE: I love a bit of a life saver. *wink*
LADY CATHERINE: And you must never eat a life saver. Those lollies are just terrible for you.
MR DARCY: Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, nah, mate.
MR DARCY: Yeah, well, your mum’s a bogan and your dad’s a bludger and your sisters are all fucking root rats who wear too much Billabong.
ELIZABETH: My dad’s legit on compo and you’re figjam and you can fuck right off!
LYDIA: We’ve come to meet you! And also buy a new trucker cap and a MAMBO shirt, but I’ve got no cash; can I borrow a pineapple?
UNCLE GARDINER: You know, Lizzie, we’re actually quite near Darcy’s place.
ELIZABETH: Ugh.
AUNT GARDINER: Oh I’ve heard that Pemberley has wonderful views of the Harbour Bridge!
ELIZABETH: But it’s a bloody coat hanger!
ELIZABETH: Well okay I SUPPOSE the bridge does look pretty good from here.
MRS HOUSEKEEPER: And here is the kitchen. It was recently renoed.
AUNT GARDINER: Look at the Hills Hoist out there!
MRS HOUSEKEEPER: It is pretty fucking sweet.
AUNT GARDINER: And the games of goon of fortune you could have there!
ELIZABETH: So look, we only came to Pemberley because my aunt and uncle wanted a sticky beak and… whoa.
DARCY: What?
ELIZABETH: This is a GROUSE pergola.
DARCY: Thanks?
ELIZABETH: I’m not kidding you could have the mother of all barbeques out here.
JANE’S LETTER: …and then mum, hearing the knocks, shrieked, “Has a dingo come for us?!” But it was just the postie with a note. Why she couldn’t of fucking called, I don’t know. Classic Lydia.
JANE: I can’t believe that Lydia would run off with Wickham like that.
ELIZABETH: Come on, I can.
JANE: I guess none of us really wanted to acknowledge that she’s THAT much of a root rat.
WICKHAM: Look I’m sorry for basically kidnapping your sister, marrying her, and pissing off you and your dad. I hope this doesn’t affect all the future flirting I plan to send your way.
ELIZABETH: I’m gonna put a potato in your Monaro’s tailpipe, you complete deadshit.
LADY CATHERINE: I’ve heard some shit.
ELIZABETH: Are you sure?
LADY CATHERINE: Are you, or are you not, moving in with my nephew?
ELIZABETH: Sheila, have you seen the size of his backyard pool and his Hills Hoist?
DARCY: And then when Aunty Cath came back mad as a cut snake I knew you still had the hots for me.
ELIZABETH: That obvious, was it?
Tags: australia, beauty, books, hayley inch, i do not understand this at all but i like it, jane austen, stephanie lai
Fucking ace
This was a little like reading A Clockwork Orange.
‘Cept with significantly more Austen-based jokes and way less kicking people’s teeth in.
Nuh-uh! Since I speak both Russian and English, A Clockwork Orange was a walk in the park (in a *very* bad neighbourhood). This, on the other hand… what language is it even in?! :-O
(Great piece, btw. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, what little I did understand ;))
I’m so glad I’m not the only smug one about being able to read Clockwork Orange with no problem. Hooray Eastern Slavic fluency!
But… but… but I wasn’t going for smug :((((
It was rather good, though, getting all his sneaky jokes and puns 🙂
Less, but still a non-zero number of teeth being kicked in.
Except people in Straya actually talk like htis
I wish I was Australian.
Aw, just come on over! The more the merrier!*
*May not be official government policy.
Anyone can be an Aussie if they want to be. Just maybe keep the crass language to a minimum in polite company. 😉
This was ripper!
I feel like the time I’ve spent watching Australia’s Next Top Model really paid off here because I was actually able to understand at least half of this.
I was thinking Dance Academy, but totally!
all of my Australian culture knowledge comes from McLeod’s Daughters which turns out to be less useful here. No mention of utes or brumbies anywhere!
All of my knowledge comes from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, so it’s a bit out of date…
Reading Morris Gleitzman and Malina Marchetta is definitely what’s helping me.
This is awesome and I’m sure I would find it EVEN FUNNIER if I understood more. (Handicapped by being a California girl)
Please consider writing a companion glossary.
Pretty please?
Pack of flaming galahs: carrying on, squawking etc (galah is a bird)
schoolies: spring break, I guess? After-high-school graduation party
stunner: good looking
bogan: like a redneck
chucked a sickie: pretended to be sick to get a day off
grouse: really good (mostly a Melbourne thing)
goon: cask wine. Real trashy
pash: making out
drives a ford: really not on
rashie: rash vest, like a swimsuit shirt
bludger: lazy person. Usually scamming a system
root rat: slut
compo: compensation
renoed: renovated
Hills Hoist: a classic Australian clothesline
sticky beak: to have a look
pergola: like a porch, covered area. Usually backyard.
postie: post man
mad as a cut snake: really angry
We have some excellent phrases down here. You should definitely adopt some of these into your day to day life.
I KNEW MY TRIP TO AUSTRALIA WOULD COME IN HANDY
I mean, sorry, STRAYA
Oh also, MURIEL’S WEDDING. Picked that at random off Netflix a couple months ago and was delighted by it. What a wonderfully incoherent mess of whimsy, humor, and jarring tonal shifts. I was, admittedly, a little drunk. Perfect picture for Australian Pride & Prejudice.
I came across it the exact same way. So much Abba!
You just know that this Lydia would meet Katrina Skinner from Suburban Mayhem and get completely under her wing.
Darcy can’t marry Elizabeth; she’s such a povo and too many of her sisters are skanky bogans.
Slightly disappointed no one was described as a trashbag in this piece….
Otherwise, FIVE STARS, would snort-LOL again!
Good lord, I work at an Australian-run company and speak to Australians literally every day and I still only understood 2/3 of this. Impressed.
(Though my favorite Aussie-ism is still my boss’s response every time someone asks how he is: “I’m a cracker!”)
Possibly because a lot of this language shouldn’t be used in business dealings, haha. Aussie slang is so funny, I love it.
There’s this great phrase “Flat out like a lizard drinking” which means really busy, and I actually heard someone say that seriously the other week. Most Aussie slang people know, but don’t use. It’s so great to see people use it.
I understood nothing, but that somehow made it even more charming & delightful. Australians…*swoon*
[runs to Urban Dictionary]
I laughed my friggin dupa off!
/obligatory American regional dialect response
This is the best and I may be about to send it to all my Australian relatives.
Oh my, it is 4.30am Australian Eastern Standard time so I am a little woozie, but I’m so pleased everyone seems to be enjoying such abundant Bennett sheilas and equally proliferate Australian slang! I am of course more than happy to provide definition of any of the terms used here for the greater benefit of non-Australians. ENRICH YOUR LEXICON TODAY!
Root rat? I can use context for the bulk of these, but the definition of root rat is probably more nuanced than I am coming up with.
A root rat is someone who enjoys sexy times behaviour with a vast variety of partners. It is a charmingly unisex term and can be used to refer to anyone you think is a bit of a slutbag.
“Root rat” is related to “wombat boyfriend.”
Your wombat boyfriend eats, roots, and leaves.
I did not know this but it has improved my day vastly.
Oh! One more! Pash? What’s a Pash?
A pash is a kiss!
Thank you!
Nah, mate, a pash is a FRENCh kiss – lots of tongue and spit.
Yes, pashes are WELL SLOPPY.
Never before have I wanted an audio version of a Toast post with this intensity.
In order hear ‘Jesus H Christ Bingley’ please please. Love that this is tagged in ‘beauty’, appropriate.
This translates beautifully: But he DRIVES A FORD and wears SOCKS WITH SANDALS. Yep. Collins.
Also,excellent photo selection to go along with this! I am going to have to rewatch Muriel’s Wedding soon.
Yeah, that is the most utterly perfect description of Collins I have ever seen!
STRAYA!
No one talks like this on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries…
(Kidding! Kidddding! I’ve been to modern day Melbourne a few times, where a good friend of mine lives, and my summer camp as a kid was full of counselors from New Zealand and Australia who would capsize your kayak if you mixed up their accents, so I understood like 68% of this.)
More or less exactly the story of my life.
I’m making my first toastie comment because as a Kiwi living in the UK currently on a trip to the US, this made me so so southern-hemispherically happy. Chur you fullas!
Obviously in the Ozten universe, any travel to far off lands is to NZ and Bali.
Well bugger me dead! After reading this I’m off to smoko. Anyone got a Winnie Blue?
Poor Lady Catherine would spin whizzbangs in her grave but ultimately have to concede that “I’ve heard some shit” pretty much summed her game up.
Well done ladies!! Lost it somewhere between “fucking sweet” and the grouse pergola…
This is a beaut! “Like a bunch of galah’s” was where I lost it.
Oh my god Lady Catherine de Bouuuuuuuurrgggghhh
DRIVES A FORD
Tony Abbott as Mr Collins: Churchy! Embarrassing! Wears budgie smugglers to the beach YOU KNOW MR COLLINS WOULD
OMG SHHHHH now I’m laughing in fear
I see him as more of a Kevin Rudd type, myself
Cheers for your response, my Toastie friends! I am a time zone behind Hayley today and I was CHUFFED to wake up to your comments! PLEASE ASK US FOR AUDIO, we really really want to.
Also cannot believe you all know what figjam is. DO YOUSE?
As an Aussie who studied Jane’s classic in high school, this is one of the greatest adaptations I have ever read 🙂
I AM AUSTRALIAN AND I UNDERSTOOD ALL OF THIS AND IT IS AMAZING THE END.
Uh, hi! I liked this a lot. Especially figjam 🙂 Definitely do audio because it would be greaaaat.
I’m gonna explain figjam!
Fuck I’m Good Just Ask Me.
Fellow Aussie here.
Only thing that would have made this better would be S’POSE rather than SUPPOSE.
But then I speak Westraylian so YMMV.
I gotta admit, I’m from northern NSW and I’d never heard figjam until I was visiting friends in Adelaide. Not sure if because it’s not a north NSW / southern QLD thing or it’s just coincidence. That said figjam is a grouse word and everyone should know it.
Yeah, I’m from Sydney. Totally never heard that term.
Though I’m woefully un-bogan. I’d never heard the term “goon” until I went to uni, and thereafter, it has amused me to no end.
My dad does say he’s gonna “have a captain cook” at things, so I guess we’re Aussie enough for rhyming slang.
We used FIGJAM a lot in SE QLD in the mid-90s.
My friend had FIGJAM socks. They were deadly.
Perhaps it is a SA thing? I grew up there and was VERY familiar with the term. Our teachers were not so keen 🙂
I remember it from my youth as “Fuck I’m *great* just ask me”…
FIGJAM was my favourite bit. Whole thing: grouse.
Speaking of grouseness: whatsgrouse.tumblr.com is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
‘Yeah nah’
Amazing
Tears of laughter. Absolutely brilliant!
As requested both here and on the Twitters, BEHOLD! An Oz Glossary.
Bludger: A lazy person; a person inclined to shirk employment.
Blue Light Disco: Dances put on by local police forces that offer young people entertainment in an alcohol and drug-free environment. You will no doubt be forced to attend one held at your school at least once in your Australian childhood.
Bogan: An unsophisticated person whose speech and manners indicate a lack of class or education.
Chucked a sickie: Called in sick to work when one is not actually sick.
Compo: Compensation, most often explicitly referring to worker’s compensation from having been injured on the job.
Deadshit: Utterly hopeless terrible awful person, seriously where is that potato.
Fairy Bread: Sliced white bread spread with butter and covered in sprinkles (hundreds and thousands). Compulsory at children’s parties, and quite a few adult ones as well.
Figjam: Fuck I’m Awesome, Just Ask Me
Galah: Fool or idiot. Inspired by the native pink and grey parrot of the same name.
Goon: Cask or box wine. The plastic bladder containing the wine is also known as a goon bag.
Goon Of Fortune: A drinking game where one ties bags of cask wine to a Hills Hoist, then spins the Hills Hoist, and participants have drink the contents of whichever goon bag stops nearest them. The most Australian activity you can possibly engage in.
Grouse: Awesome, amazing.
Hills Hoist: A rotary clothes line. Ubiquitous across suburban backyards.
Pineapple: A $50 note, so called due to the note’s yellow colour.
Rashie: A Lycra water-suitable shirt worn at the beach to protect one’s skin from the DEADLY AUSTRALIAN SUN.
Red Rooster: A uniquely Australian roast chicken fast food franchise.
Reno/Renoed: The process of renovating a house.
Schoolies: Also known as schoolies week, the tradition where high school graduates take a week’s holiday to celebrate the completion of school.
I’m marrying an Australian and moving to Adelaide and I understood virtually none of the post, although that didn’t stop me enjoying it anyway. But BLESS YOU KIND STRANGER.
Enjoy your move to Adelaide. Don’t forget to check out the Mortlock Wing of the State Library and the old reading room at the Barr Smith library at Adelaide uni. They’re both heaps good and fitting places for any toastie.
Liking for use of the phrase “heaps good.” (I want one of those shirts!)
Welcome! As an Adelaidian who was born in NSW, I’ll have to warn you that a lot of that slang is pretty specifically East Coast. I mean, Adelaidian’s will understand all of that because pretty much all Australian TV is made in the eastern states, but there is a lot of terms that just don’t get used here (even ironically.)
Because Adelaide was a free colony, don’t you know. No dirty, bogan convict class here.
(Adelaide: secretly suffering from short man syndrome since 1836! You kinda have to forgive them, though, as it is to nicest city to actually live in.)
Hooray!! There are Adelaide Toasties apart from me!! Hello all (both) of you!
FRIENDS!! I stayed in/near Adelaide for a month back in ’09 and fricking love the place. I always get ridiculously excited when I run into someone from there. Everyone was just so very nice. (I was actually in Victor Harbor mostly, and I experienced schoolies week. I think we may have even gone to a blue light disco.) I kno people give Adelaide shit for having a lot of churches and not much else, but I real didn’t experience that. Then again, people say the same stuff about my city, so maybe I’m just sympathetic. 🙂
Also Toolies- older guys who go to schoolies week to get the young girls pissed as parrots so they can get a leg over.
Oh, Hayley, I’m Australian born and bred and I didn’t know quite a few of these! Your encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian language and culture has me in awe.
I knew some of these! My first housemate in the Netherlands was a lovely Australian girl and we did a couple short Euro trips together, so I learned about stuff like “bogan.”
Also in the Netherlands they essentially eat fairy bread for breakfast (and sometimes lunch).
NEEDS MORE WITCHES HATS
I can hardly wait for the Aussie versions of Persuasion, Emma, and Northanger Abbey. Please,May we have some more?
I really wish every response to things I wrote came in the form of Good Burger gifs, this is GLORIOUS.
Perfection.
There’s an error here, it should say “fucken rung” not “fucking called”. Also why does my phone want to bowdlerise fucken into Dickens, that’d be fucken right. Apart from that, I nearly shat myself. “Yeah nah mate”. What a cack.
OH SHITE MATE YOU ARE CORRECT
Fuckin’ Grouse as.
stereotypical, classist rubbish.
You mean Jane Austen?
no. well probably, but i’ll always love pride and prejudice (i like the keira knightley version the most, presumably because i am bourgeois). the article uses outdated slang and shitty stereotypes about poorer australians and as someone who works with and came from a family of quote-unquote bogans it just comes off as disrespectful and kind of trite.
How does your bogan family feel about you growing up to be such a wowser? I know which one I’d rather be…
Hello! Just wanted to clarify that Steph and I both come from bogan families too, and our intentions in framing P&P this way was to totally celebrate that via Austen’s excellent skewering of class stereotypes. Of course if intentions were wishes were horses then beggars would ride, we may have failed in expressing that and totally missed the mark, but we wanted to let everyone know that we were celebrating from within, not leveling derision from without.
Oh my goodness, WELCOME SOON TO BE NEW AUSTRALIAN RESIDENT! Australia is great, we have our problems like anywhere else but it is a pretty ace place to be, I hope you’ll enjoy it here 😀
Oops, this was a reply to @merrillworks!
Jesus H Christ Bingley they’re the biggest bogans I’ve ever seen, you can’t marry into that
LOVE
I don’t know which feels weirder: the fact that I don’t understand all of this, or the fact that I understand much more than I expected considering my non-Australian-ness.
I’m a kiwi who does Austen shows and this was fucking choice bro.
Bloody. Bonza.
Maaaaate this is everything (I bloody miss home).
I am an Oz and I didn’t get it… Is she saying he’s up himself?
Farken hell Intense Debate, that was supposed to be under Stephanie’s figjam comment.
I am actually beginning to suspect it’s a very West Oz specific term – yeah, it’s to imply that someone (can be oneself or someone else) is up themselves. I had a friend in Year 9 who wore socks that said ‘FIGJAM’ and she adored them.
I never heard it until I was visiting people in Adelaide, and I’m from near Byron Bay on the NSW north coast, land of the schoolies, home of the hippies. We’d just say he was up himself.
nah yeah, amazing, but aye.
Blue Light Disco. Ha.
Bloody oath. This was bonza, alright. So awesome to see some Aussie talent here on the Toast!
What’s funny is that the Handsome Sidekick is from the north of England, and I’m a language chameleon, so I know my accent isn’t as broad as it might be, were I hanging around with other Australians all the time. But we’ll be out somewhere and if I’m talking to someone really ocka, apparently I drop right into ‘Strine. And I don’t even notice (meanwhile, he’s falling about laughing at me).
I’d argue that “yeah nah” is more of a Kiwi thing but maaaaate. This is awesome. (Kiwi in UK here).
Oh dear. Trouble is, when you grow up here, that’s not parody, it’s life 🙂
For the Australo-handicapped, the other advantage of a goon bag (other than holding 4 litres – about a gallon – of very ordinary wine) is being able to fill the bag full of air, hang it from the rotary washing line, and then use it as a poor man’s rollercoaster, hanging from the goon bag. Usually after consuming those said 4 litres of ordinary wine. Among Australians, this is known as probably the best form of ‘recycling’.
Love your work Alex 🙂
My favourite! I say it often
Alf Stewart as Mr. Bennet!
Also, I would recommend the term “rugby mattress” for Kitty and Lydia in place of “root rat”.
to continue from Alex's fine effort…
pineapple: $50 note (it's yellow, $20's are red and called "lobsters")
Monaro: Aussie car sold in the US as Pontiac GTS. Hotted up old school bogan car
Red Rooster: chicken place like KFC but the chicken is roasted not fried
Billabong/MAMBO : iconic surfer fashion labels. Mostly worn by bogans.
(the) coat hanger: affectionate name for the Harbour Bridge
goon of fortune: a drinking game where you clothes peg the inner bladder of a wine cask to the Hills Hoist (rotary clothes line) and have all your mates stand in a circle underneath it, taking turns in spinning the clothes line around like the Wheel of Fortune wheel. Whoever is underneath the cask when it stops, drinks.
wowser: a person who is vocal about their conservative and/or religious beliefs. Not to be trusted and only wearily tolerated.
fairy bread: a staple of Australian childrens parties and nostalgic adults, it's buttered bread covered with sprinkles (called "hundreds and thousands" here)
I'm an Aussie, but I would love a Kiwi-ised Austen. You guys have fully sick slang, bro.
I come back to this on occasion — I get the impression it’s been edited and had some extras chucked in? The bit about lifesavers is new for sure! Or did my mind turn to gruyere…
I come back to this on occasion — I get the impression it's been edited and had some extras chucked in? The bit about lifesavers is new for sure! Or did my mind turn to gruyere…