I’m working through notes that my friend Mustang Sally has made on The Arrival, and wow sometimes the differences between kiwi (NZ) and American slang is hilarious. So I thought I would find some of NZ’s really out-there slang for you guys to chuckle at.
Over the ditch (or ‘across the ditch) – meaning across the Tasman sea to Aussie (our cuzzies ;p)
Bach/hut – holiday home
Buggar – disappointment or an ‘oops’ moment (like ‘buggar, really should have put the handbrake on…’)
Cuz – Cousin/friend/anyone NZ decides they want to claim (‘eh bro, he’s my cuz, right?’)
Dear – expensive (‘bloody hell that’s dear!’)
Bloody hell – OMG /WTF /Oh shit – you get the drift ;p
Exercise books – school work books
Fancy – something attractive ( ‘Ooo, she’s a bit fancy’)
Flog/nick/pinch – steal (‘I flogged a loaf of bread from the store’)
‘Good on you!’ – approval of one’s actions.
Hard yakka – hard work
Hosing down/raining cats and dogs – raining hard
Knackered – sleepy or exhausted (and I used this in The Arrival *lol* without even thinking ;p)
Mate – a term for a friend, or when you’re greeting a stranger (‘g’day mate’)
G’day – greetings – originally short for ‘good day’
Oz – Australia
Pong – bad smell (‘Whew! That fish pongs!’)
Ripped off – you paid too much (‘that store owner totally ripped me off’)
Remuera tractor – SUV, 4 wheel drive car only on the city’s roads (my absolute pet peeve!)
Shake a leg – hurry up (‘Oi, shake a leg – we’re gonna be late!’)
Sweet as – no problem (‘sure mate, sweet as’)
Take a hike – go away (‘Take a hike you idiot!’)
Tramping – hiking
Wet blanket – someone who spoils all the fun
Yonks – a long time (‘I haven’t seen you for yonks’)
And here’s a classic Kiwi Advert – excuse the quality, it’s rather old and the creatures in the advert are possums.
And for those of you wanting to know how progress is going with Awakening.
Well, Mustang Sally, Alex, and Emily, are currently reviewing it (eeee!) and once they get all their thoughts/notes back to me I’ll be racing to correct it then get it off to my line editor.
And that. Is the. Last person… When I get it back from the wonderful Trish (line editor), I will be onto formatting and then *gulp* it will be available!!!
In the mean time I’m making The Arrival absolutely gleam (including full reformatting, editing, a glossary of main characters and a map) and it will be ‘rereleased’ on Amazon prior to Awakening coming up. All those of you that have an older copy of The Arrival will receive an e-mail from Amazon (if you bought it from there) and a link so you can re-upload it for free : ) And I will need all of your help when the time comes, to get The Arrival back on the free list.
What do I mean by that?
Well unfortunately at the present time, Amazon doesn’t allow indies to publish books for free. The only way to get your book free is to make sure that it’s listed elsewhere (Barnes & Noble, Sony) for free and then get your friends to pop on to the Amazon page and hit the ‘I’ve seen a lower price for this item’ button. Then it’s just a matter of providing a link to one of the other sites and once Amazon receives enough hits, they change the pricing to $0.
Technical and tedious much! But very helpful for promoting your book *grin* So when I get to that stage I will provide all the links, if you don’t mind spending a moment of your time doing this. I would sooooo greatly appreciate it!
On a side note, thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my last post. Glenn and I miss our little golden boy lots and really appreciated all your thoughts.
Take care all!
Nic
Well in the UK we use "across the pond" meaning "in america" which is similar to your across the ditch 😉 Another one that means something different in UK would be flog, which means to sell something here or to beat something. And hosing down, would be soaking something with a hose pipe 🙂 Of course we don't have Remuera tractors but we have plenty of other SUVs, I drive a land rover but I drive it in places other than the city streets 🙂
Good luck grappling with the Amazon side of things – sounds ever so complicated!
Good on you! 🙂
Take care
x
Hehe, we are unique in our colloquialisms! Sweet! ;p
Can't say I've noticed that much difference between UK and NZ language, considering most NZ language has been brought over from UK. I was a little shocked kiwis used slang like "wee" thought that was just us Scots. The only new ones for me were; sweet as, cuz, bro, and bach (we dont have bach's) which were all self explanatory in context. Though I did have to get used to college being high school, in the UK it's like Polytech is here :p
Love the lingo! I'm actually a Kiwi at heart living in London. And good luck with Awakening!