It's Russell Crowe, talking to you about slang

from two cultures that I'm very, very familiar with.

The New Zealand culture, which in this terminology is Kiwi,

and the Australian culture, in this terminology is Aussie.

Let's have a look, that's the title page,

farthey bar, that's me, that's my name down the bottom.

This is gonna be a little bit of fun.

[upbeat music]

Carked it, oh my lord, carked it.

Not very nice.

Carked it means you're dead, hm.

Chilly bin.

Chilly bin, odd phrase, even really,

you know, for someone born in New Zealand,

but a chilly bin of course is an eski.

Oh, that's Australian slang.

Both of those names, chilly bin and eski, mean ice chest.

A portable box that keeps mainly your beer cold.

This word, which you might think refers

to a composer of some note, as Bach.

In New Zealand, it's actually bach,

and bach means a cottage, potentially by the sea,

but it's a holiday home,

and usually kind of a shitty place.

Not necessarily very special.

It's a roof, and maybe running water,

maybe power, maybe not necessarily,

but it's a cool place to go and sleep

in the summer months, and if you are near water,

an extra benefit.

Bring a plate.

This is very, very old fashioned,

this is old school Kiwi,

but it's a small gathering, coming together,

and instead of one person cooking for everybody,

everybody brings a plate,

so you never know what's going to arrive,

and whether those things actually bear any relationship

to each other from a cuisine perspective.

Bugger all.

Means, basically nothing.

You have nothing.

What do you have, mate?

Bugger all, you've got nothing.

Knackered, hm, knackered.

Yes, knackered means tired.

It's bigger than tired.

If you're knackered you're completely tired,

you're bereft of all energy,

any level of focus, it's time for you

to have an LLD, which is an Australian slang thing,

we're just jumping ahead, a little lie down.

[laughs]

Yes, that is knackered.

Chocka.

Chocka.

Now, this actually comes from a nautical term,

from the British Navy, chocka block.

So that means your sail is at its full width, and glory.

So it means full.

Chocka block.

Choice as.

Well, this is sort of a combination of two things.

Choice means very good.

As is a little thing that New Zealanders add

to a lot of words, which means that it is something

either positive or negative or whatever,

but it is something special.

So, something can be cool as.

Something can equally be shit as.

So, hm.

Chur.

Hm.

I think it kind of means basically sure, you know?

Somebody says, you know,

are you gonna do something something?

You go chur.

Jandals, hm.

[laughs]

Jandals in Australia are called thongs.

So a jandal and a thong is the same thing,

however, it's not the American thong, it's footwear.

So a jandal and a thong are the same as flip flops.

There's been many a story about Americans misunderstanding

what somebody from Australia means when they say thong.

There's one I read about actually,

where a woman was staying as a house guest

with a married couple, and it was somewhere near a beach

in Los Angeles, and the sun was out,

but she didn't realize it was gonna be so sunny,

she hadn't bought, you know,

all of the things she wanted to have

to go for a swim, and so she just texted

the woman at the house to say,

off for a swim, have borrowed your thongs,

and that caused a problem.

Piece of piss.

Now that's something that's very easy.

She'll be right.

Everything will be okay.

No matter how complex what we're dealing

with is right now, she'll be right.

Sweet as, going back to the as thing from before.

Yeah, any word, as, means it's of particular note.

Tramping, that means going for a hike in the bush.

The Wops, that means somewhere far away from civilization.

Stubbies.

It's a particular brand of work short

that contractors, etc., used to wear,

and they're very, very short,

and they had a little pocket at the back.

Stubbies is also refers to a particular type of beer bottle.

Not a long neck, a smaller bottle, slightly rounded shape.

Rounded shoulders, anyway, and that's a stubbie.

Accadacca.

Now that's what we call the band AC/DC, Accadacca.

The Aussie salute is this,

and it comes from long hot summers in Australia

where there are too many flies,

and you continuously find yourself doing this.

A billabong is actually a small lake,

but it's more, more of a swamp, really, you know,

or a dam of water,

so it doesn't have a creek, or a river,

or anything running into it or through it,

it's not fed by mountain streams,

like really like a lake, so it's,

it's just a place where water holds,

and usually it's used for watering stock.

Booze bus.

Now that is a thing we have random breath testing

in Australia and New Zealand,

so if you're going out driving,

and you've been drinking on a weekend night or whatever,

it's highly likely that you will be pulled over

from random breath testing,

and that's what they call the police cars associated

with an RBT stop.

Budgie smugglers.

Now, these are possibly known

in your culture as Speedos, yeah?

Okay.

And it's just somebody's observation,

sometime long in the distant past of Australia culture,

that a Speedo fits your average man

the same way as it would be

if he had a small budgie, Budgerigar, bird,

stuffed down the front of his pants.

They tend to have sort of like swollen chests,

and round heads.

Would potentially push out against such a sheer material.

Anyway, colorful, right?

Brings an image to mind, doesn't it?

The budgie smuggler.

Ah, Cab Sav.

This is the height of Australia culture,

and of course refers to the wine, Cabernet Sauvignon.

Chook.

Chook is simply a chicken, so.

Ah, Chrissie.

Nice time of the year.

Christmas.

Clucky.

[laughs]

Somebody's clucky, they would like to have a child.

Can be male or female, but it's usually directed

towards a woman.

Devo, oh my god.

Devo, when something bad goes wrong,

and you're devastated, you're devo.

Drongo.

This is a very old fashioned word,

that doesn't really get used that much anymore.

It's gone by the wayside a little bit,

but it means an idiot.

Furphy.

It means a mistake.

Heaps.

It means a lot.

One of my favorite uses of the word heaps,

which, and I would never use the particular, that word,

but in the documentary about the bra boys,

one of those surfers is talking

about the waves that he was just riding,

and one of them says the waves were epic,

and he responds with, "They were heaps epic."

Maccas.

You guys call it Mickey Ds, it's McDonalds.

Piss up, hm hm.

It's Friday here.

Probably around about 5:00, I'll be doing that,

which means have a drink.

Rellie, or rello, means somebody from your family.

Uncles, aunts, cousins, etc., etc.

Skull, mm hm.

That means to drink your drink quickly.

Up yourself.

That is what I am.

Confident.

Anyway, that's the end of that list,

but I wanted to add a special one

that is not on the list, and that's crack a fat.

It's a great expression,

and it can be used in many situations and conversations.

I once saw Nicole Kidman say it on the Jay Leno Show,

because she was in a similar situation,

where somebody was asking her to discuss Australian slang,

and she said it, and then Jay kept repeating it,

over and over again, and Nicole realized

the hole she'd dug herself into,

and Jay kept saying things like,

"We'll be right back after this break,

"to crack a fat with Nicole Kidman,"

and that sent Nicole into proxiums of giggles,

because crack a fat means getting an erection.

Anyway, this has been been Russell Crowe,

talking to you about Australia and New Zealand slang,

for Vanity Fair, and anybody else

who has cared to watch.

Goodbye now.