Nessie School of Languages

General differences between British and Australian English

 Grammatical differences

 

There are quite a few differences between Australian and British-English
grammar. I am going to try to explain some of them:

 

1. The use of the auxiliaries shall and should with
   first-person subjects, as in ?I shall
   go?, ?We should like to see you?, is less usual in Australian-English
   than in British-English, and even in British-English there are now
   increasingly replaced by ?will?
   and ?would?, as in ?I will go/I?ll go?, ?We would like to see you?.

 

2. In British-English, the following negative forms
   of used to are all possible:

–  ?He used not to go?

–  ?He usedn?t to go?

–  ?He didn?t use to go?

The first construction is the more usual in writing. The third is less
usual in Australian-English than in British-English while the second is more
usual in Australian English than in British-English.

 

3. For many British -English?s speakers, the
   auxiliary ?do? is usually used
   in tag questions in sentences with the auxiliary ?ought?.

Example:? He ought to go, didn?t
he??

In Australian-English, do is
not used in such cases, instead, ?should?
or ?ought?.

Example: ?Shouldn?t he??

?Oughtn?t he??

 

4. The occurrence of do with an auxiliary when do
   substitutes for a verb, as in ?Are
   you going tonight??, ?I may do/ I could do /I should do?, which are
   quite normal in British -English, is less common in Australian-English.

 

5. The use of ?have?
   in expressing possession, as in ?I
   have a new car?, is more usual in British-English than in
   Australian-English, where got, as in ?I?ve
   got a new car?, is preferred.

 

6.    
British-English
allows all the following double-object constructions with some regional
variation:

– ? I?ll give it him?

– ?I?ll give
him it.?

– ?I?ll give it
to him?.

 

The last construction is the most usual British-English, especially in
the south of England, and it is also the most usual in Australian-English.

 

7.    
In British-English
it is quite usual for collective nouns to take plural verbs. For example:

–         
?The government have made a mistake.?

–         
?The team are playing very badly.?

 

The opposite is the usual case in Australian-English, where for
collective nouns would tend to have the singular forms of the verbs. For example:

–         
?The government has made a mistake.?

–         
?The team is playing very badly.?

 

8.    
In colloquial
Australian-English, the feminine pronoun ?she?
can be used to refer to inanimate nouns and in impersonal constructions.

Example:

–         
?She?ll be right? (?Everything will be all right?).

–         
?She?s a stinker today? (?The weather is excessively
hot today?).

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.2.2
Lexical differences

 

A few of these words which are only used in Australian-English are terms
historically widely used in many English-speaking countries, for example:
bush that means native forest or outback that means a remote populated
area. Many of these words, phrases or usages originated with the British
convicts transported to Australia.

 

Many words used frequently by Australians are also used in all or part of
England, with variations in meaning. For example: a creek in Australia,
as in North America, is any stream or small river, whereas in England it is a
small watercourse flowing into the sea; paddock is the Australian word
for a field, while in England it is a small enclosure for livestock.

 

Australian English and several
British English dialects (eg. Cockney; Scouse; Geordie) also both use the word mate to mean a close
friend of the same gender and increasingly with platonic friend of the opposite
sex (rather than the conventional meaning of "a spouse"),
although this usage has also become common in some other varieties of English.

 

The origins of other terms are
not as clear. Dinkum (or "fair dinkum") means
"true", or when used in speech: "is that true?", "this
is the truth!", and other meanings, depending on context. It is often
claimed that dinkum dates back to the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s, and that
it is derived from the Cantonese ding kam, meaning
"top gold". However, scholars give greater credence to the notion
that it originated with a now-extinct dialect word from the East
Midlands in England, where dinkum (or dincum) meant "hard work"
or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian
English. The derivation dinky-di means a ‘true’ or devoted Australian.
The words dinkum or dinky-di and phrases like true blue
are widely purported to be typical Australian sayings, however these sayings
are more commonly used in jest or parody rather than as an authentic way of
speaking.

 

Similarly, g’day, a
stereotypical Australian greeting, is no longer synonymous with "good
day" in other varieties of English (it can be used at night time) and is
never used as an expression for "farewell", as "good day"
is in other countries.

 

Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been
incorporated into Australian English, mainly as names for places, flora and
fauna (for example dingo,
kangaroo).
Beyond that, few terms have been adopted into the wider language. Some examples
are cooee
and Hard yakka.

 

Though often thought of as an
Aboriginal word, didgeridoo (a well known wooden ceremonial musical
instrument) is probably an onomatopaoeic word of Western invention. It has also
been suggested that it may have an Irish
derivation.

 

I have added a list of some words which are different in Australian-
English from their British English equivalent. I have also included the
translation into Catalan:

 

	Australian-English	British-English	Catalan
1	to barrack for	to support	donar suport
2	bludger	a loafer, sponger	gandul
3	footpath	pavement	vorera/ calçada
4	frock	dress	vestit
5	get	fetch	portar/ anar a buscar/ obtenir
6	goodday	hello	hola/ bon dia
7	gumboots	wellington boots	bota de goma
8	(one storey) house	bungalow	bungalou
9	lolly	sweet	dolç
10	paddock	field	camp
11	parka	anorak	anorac
12	picture theatre	cinema	cinema
13	radiator	(electric)fire	radiador
14	singlet	vest	samarreta
15	station	stock farm	Granja d?animals
16	stove	cooker	cuina
17	stroller	push-chair	cotxet
18	wreckers	breakers	Una persona que espatlla quelcom
19	station wagon	estate car	cotxe familiar
20	sedan	saloon car	berlina

 

I am going to explain some of the lexical differences between
Australian-English and British-English:

 

1.     
?To barrack for? is an Australian-English term used to support sport teams. Example: ?Who do you barrack for??

The term to barrack for is known in British – English
but in the meaning of ?shouting abuse or unfavourable comments? at sports
teams, and is now somewhat old-fashioned.

 

2.     
?Bludger? is a colloquial form that in British -English is ?loafer?.

 

3.     
 In British -English, ?footpath? refers to a path across fields, through woods, while ?pavement? refers to a pathway beside a
road or street. In Australian-English, ?footpath?
covers both. Both ?pavement? and ?sidewalk? do occur, however, in certain
areas of Australia.

 

4.     
Both varieties allow
both words. ?Frock? in English-
English sounds old-fashioned and it is not used in advertising as it is in
Australian- English.

 

5.     
?Get? is used
in both dialects, but usages such as ?I?ll
fetch it for you are? much less usual in Australian- English than in British
– English.

 

6.     
?Goodday? is a common, colloquial form of greeting in Australian-English and it is
not used in British-English.

7.     
?Gumboots? is understood in British-English but sounds rather archaic. In both
varieties is used the term ?rubber boots?.

 

8.     
British-English
distinguishes between ?bungalow? (a
one-storey house) and ?house? (a two
or more storey house), although ?house?
is also a generic term covering both. In Australia, where bungalows are more common than in Britain, this distinction is not made. ?Bungalow?, however, is used in Australian-English to refer to a less
substantial construction such as a summer house, beach bungalow, etc.

 

9.     
In British-English,
?lolly? is an abbreviation of lollipop, which is a sweet on a stick,
designed for licking. In Australian-English,
?lolly? is a generic term corresponding to British -English ?sweet?. ?Sweet? is used in Australian-English, but usually as a rather
formal shop-type word.

 

10.
The word ?paddock? is used in British -English
with the more restricted meaning of a field that is used for grazing horses.
The Australian-English usage refers to any piece of fenced-in land. ?Field? is used in Australian-English
with abstract meaning and also in reference to, for example, a ?football field? which translated in British
-English is ?football pitch?. Many words
referring to European-type countryside features, such as ?brook?, ?stream?, ?meadow?
are unusual or poetic in Australian-English.

 

11.
The word ?parka? is known in British -English but
in recent years has been replaced by ?anorak?,
although some manufacturers may make a distinction, using these terms, between
different types of coat. (Both words are loans from Eskimo).

 

12.
?Cinema? is used
in both varieties, but is rather higher style in Australian-English. One
doesn?t say ?picture theatre? in
British -English, but both varieties have the informal phrase ?going to the pictures?.

 

13.
?Radiator? is used in British -English, but only with reference to hot water or
oil radiators, for example, those used in central-heating systems. In British -English
both portable and fixed heaters
consisting of electrically heated bars are known as ?fires?.

 

14.
 ?Singlet?
is known and used in British -English, but
?vest? is not usual in Australian-English.

 

15.
In Australia-English
a ?station? refers to a ?large cattle? or ?sleep farm? (besides having the common meaning to all forms of English,
as in ?railway station?).

 

16.
?Cooker? is not
usual in Australian-English, while both ?cooker?
and ?stove? are used in British-English.

 

17.
?Stroller? is known in British -English, but is not so widely used as ?pushchair?. Some forms of
Australian-English also use ?push-chair?
or ?pushy?.

 

More lexical differences can be found at the level of
colloquial speech. Here there are some of colloquial expressions not known in British
-English:

  

 

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