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things. It is very rare to end Australian names with consonants. We like our vowels and feel that you can't find anything better to end a word with. As an example, if your name is Johnson or Simpson, you'll probably be referred to as Johnno and Simmo (although I'd be Whitey). Kangaroos are either "kangas" or just "roos", while kookaburra is just way too long a title for a bird. "Kooka" will do. We did once use "sheila" as a generic term for any female, but Steve Irwin was a bit of anachronism in that he was probably the only person after about 1980 to do so. We do love our nicknames though, and apart from the obvious ones, where we shorten the name and add a vowel as in the Johnno and Simmo examples above, and I should say that anyone with Scottish heritage, as a McSomething, automatically becomes "Macca", we like to use a bit of wit. Someone with red hair will be invariably called "Bluey", someone with straight hair "Curly", a short person "Stretch", someone who likes a drink or three "Lipton" (as in tea, teetotaller).

We like our similies and share the English penchant for rhyming slang. It will not suffice to just say that it is hot or cold, wet or dry. That doesn't register in the Australian psyche unless it is compared to something that we can relate to. It's also one of the few areas where we tend to get a little flowery with our speech. A day could be "as hot as a tin roof in the middle of summer in Marble Bar" (which you might expect is a mighty hot place, even by Australian standards. It holds the record as the hottest place in Australia and in 1923-24 it reached or exceeded 100F for 160 consecutive days), though it could just as easily be called "a stinker" (as in 'stinking hot'). A cold day could be "as cold as the inside of the cool room at (insert name of pub - which is the Australian equivalent of a bar)". On that note, if someone says they are "as dry as the Simpson Desert" (although they often use much more colourful descriptors that I can't repeat here), offer them a drink. Meat pies, an Australian staple, are called "maggot bags" or "dogs' eyes" (arguably a fair description of the quality of the contents) and, if you want tomato sauce on it, you'd ask for it with "dead horse". There are all manner of descriptions for bodily functions and I'll also leave these alone.

There are regional differences in speech. South Australians tend to use long a's. So "dance" becomes "darnce" and so on. I'm not really sure why this is, as South Australia has

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