assimilation.

earlier this morning, a colleague asked me when i would be free to run a traning session and i said “anytime this arvo i’m free.”  didn’t even think to “aussify” my lingo or anything…it just came out as if “arvo” has been part of my vocab since birth. (arvo = afternoon).  it’s part of a trend of assimilation that i’m recognising about myself.

a lot of you give me a hard time about my new spelling of words – but that’s how it is here.  it’s the first thing i had to train myself to do.  i had to turn off the US dictionary on my computer and turn on the UK one. now i’m just used to it and i spell words like that in casual emails to my friends back in america.  usually the first sentences of their reply are about my spelling.

my friends are my mates, rednecks are bogans, i have brekkie in the morning not breakfast, i call the trunk of the car the boot,  and my shopping cart at the supermarket is a trolly. and it sounded weird when i first got here but i learned that the way to avoid weird stares from the natives, is to talk like them (most of the time – my american accent gives me away).  it doesn’t bother me as much as i thought it would but i am very aware of it.

i have thankfully avoided most of the annoying aussie things – like raising my voice at the end of a statement (even if it’s not a question) which annoys me to no end.   i don’t say (and i don’t think i ever will) things like “fairdinkum” or “bloody oath” unless i’m trying to make the Brit laugh.  after a party, i don’t ask how they “pulled up” the next morning and i don’t call girls “darl”.

i think my assimilation is of the british/australian variety since the Brit really hasn’t succumbed yet (and he’s been here longer than me!). i like tea in the afternoons and i find myself saying “bloody” a lot, or “bloody hell.” i haven’t developed a quasi british accent (like madonna).  sometimes i put on a really affected one when i’m talking to the husband which makes him laugh because i sound so ridiculous (i say things like “jolly good” and “cheerio” or generally just imitate him the best i can which isn’t that good). 

when i went home to america in september my friends marveled at how different my manner of speaking has become which i never really noticed.  i do still say some truly american things like “do the math” to which most say “god, you’re so american!”  ha! i still got it.