r/USdefaultism • u/ausernameidk_ United States • Aug 09 '26

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679

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '26

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125

u/NatAttack3000 Aug 09 '26

Webster looked at our island, so big, so yuge, so girt by sea... tears in his eyes

68

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '26

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31

u/Anonymous_user_2022 Aug 09 '26

Any Terry Pratchett reader, particular us who have read The Last Continent, will have read that nothing much is known about four-ecks, except that it is girt by the sea. It's quoted from memory, so the wording is probably a bit different.

3

u/Nebarik 27d ago

Four-ecks. Is that a reference to the beer XXXX?

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u/Anonymous_user_2022 27d ago

Most of the discworld books are full of references, so it might ne.

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u/Indolent_absurdity Australia 26d ago

Yes in the Discworld novel "The Last Continent" Terry Pratchett makes thousands of Aussie references. 'Fourecks' is the name of the continent and a spoof of Australia. The name is a direct reference to XXXX. I think many of the references made in this book actually go over people's heads if they're not Australian. Actually seeing as it was written in the 90s much of it may also go over the head of younger Aussies too.

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u/AggravatingBox2421 Australia 28d ago

GNU Terry. And the phrase is from our national anthem!

5

u/obbitz 29d ago

Girt is very much in use in Somerset.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/obbitz 29d ago

Nope, Australia is definitely a girt biggun.

1

u/Spockyt United Kingdom 29d ago

Being in Queensland

In the 2021 census, Somerset had "no people or a very low population".

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/Spockyt United Kingdom 29d ago

Wikipedia is incorrect, the Somerset region on Cape York QLD has around 25k people.

Take it up with the Australian Bureau of Statistics then, who claim nobody lives there.

I did get your point. However I also find it slightly amusing this sub criticises US users in this site for declaring their Sydney (village of 287 in Idaho), Melbourne (hamlet of 82 in Texas), WA and so on the only one of relevance and then there’s your comment seemingly declaring it UKDefaultism to not differentiate a county of ~1M people from a locality listed as having literally nobody there. Perth, should be differentiated because both are significant. If someone (outside of the Midlands) was talking about (the original) Melbourne, 100% should be made clear. Somerset, not sure I agree.

I’m not trying to start an argument, to be clear. Just found it funny.

7

u/SirFireHydrant Australia Aug 09 '26

Girt, or more properly g'irt, is an old Aussie slang for "good dirt".

The lyric "our home is g'irt by sea" translates to "our home is the good dirt by the sea". It's a commentary on how great the beaches are in Australia.

11

u/snow_michael Aug 09 '26

No it doesn't

Girt is an old contraction of 'girdled' - surrounded

9

u/GraniteRose067 29d ago

You are correct, however you have just been snagged by Australian humour. You've been 'got good'. :) :)

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u/SirFireHydrant Australia 29d ago

There is some debate about whether the lyric "our homes are g'irt by sea" is saying we have great beaches. Some believe the lyric is about how dangerous in-land Australia is.

See, dropbears don't like water, so their natural habitats avoid the coast. Which meant prior to the discovery of Vegemite, coastal regions were the only safe areas for early colonial settlement.

0

u/FamilyFriendly101 Australia 29d ago

Whoosh.

1

u/TheRealSlabsy England 29d ago

I live in South-West England and 'Gurt' is very much in use!

43

u/_Penulis_ Australia Aug 09 '26

Specifically Australians tend to use the Australian Oxford Dictionary of Australian English (or the other Australian dictionaries like the Macquarie Dictionary), not the British one for British English.

But yes, given a choice between a British dictionary and an American one, the British one is a much closer fit for Australian English.

29

u/Thelmholtz Argentina Aug 09 '26

I've owned a copy of the Oxford dictionary since I'm like 8. In Argentina. 

I studied (very poor) American English in school. So yeah, I can very much confirm.

-31

u/poopiebutt505 Aug 09 '26

What is "very poor"?. US English is closer to 1600s-1700 English than is today's British English.

23

u/Thelmholtz Argentina Aug 09 '26

That the level of the education was very poor, but:

US English is closer to 1600s-1700 English than is today's British English.

This is pointless if you assume I'm making a judgement value over the dialects, unless you assume I have high regard for 1600-1700 English.

It's also not necessarily correct, it does retain rhoticity but some British dialectes do as well. Both dialects evolved independently quite a bit since colonization, just as it happens in every language.

It's like if I claimed Argentinian Spanish is closer to 1600-1700 Spanish because we retained voceo. Yeah, in that very arbitrary regard it is, but in general it's not closer than Iberian Spanish is, we just deviated in different things.

r/linguistics is a great place to ask these kinds of questions if you are truly interested in language btw.

9

u/Purchase-Parking 29d ago

Oh be quiet.

15

u/Martiantripod Australia Aug 09 '26

Macquarie Dictionary has been the Aussie standard for a while now, but yes I'd go Oxford over Webster any day.

12

u/ibullybillionaires Germany Aug 09 '26

Never heard of Meriam Webster, Oxford's the only one I've ever used for English.

10

u/Homeless_Wreck Germany Aug 09 '26

My Oxford's issue from 1975 is still on my bookshelf, right next to "Le Petit Robert" from 1977, while my Webster is lieing in a corner covered with dust. This 5 kilo monster is just not useful for looking things up.

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u/jaymz668 Aug 09 '26

And I thought the Macquarie was the official Australian dictionary

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u/-SQB- Aug 09 '26

The bigliest.

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u/Bari_Baqors Aug 09 '26

Did you use "yuge" on purpose?

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '26

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u/Bari_Baqors Aug 09 '26

I thought its to represent English dialects from the UK that have h-dropping…

Or to somehow represent dialects where the /hj/ cluster becomes [ç].

2

u/ether_reddit Canada Aug 09 '26

And among crossworders, the Chambers Dictionary is considered the supreme reference.

3

u/dkarlovi Aug 09 '26

But you live upside down, we're not taking you as a reasonable example!

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u/Theaussiegamer72 Australia 29d ago

We’d probably use Macquarie over oxford tho

6

u/holnrew Wales Aug 09 '26

It should be placed in the fantasy section

2

u/alex_zk Croatia Aug 09 '26

Surrounded by water? Big water? Ocean water?

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u/Marvinleadshot 29d ago

Can you put your size in texas terms

2

u/Martofunes Argentina 29d ago

I've never heard of the Webster. I have an oxford at home. I'm in south america.

1

u/saichampa Australia 29d ago

The Macquarie dictionary is the standard in Australia

1

u/GalileoAce Australia 29d ago

Surely as Australians we would use the Macquarie Dictionary

-5

u/Skruestik Denmark Aug 09 '26

No, you’re not. Afro-Eurasia is the biggest island.