Using Aussie slang makes people more likable
Using Aussie slang will make you more likable to fellow Australians. But only if your accent if fair dinkum.
Research from Australian National University has found the use of slang words ending in “ie” or “o” increases the likelihood of an Australian finding you likeable.
Dr Even Kidd, says his team was interested in the social effects of these particular kinds of slang, saying, “These terms are ironically called hypocoristics which is a very long name for a very short words. These are words like 'truckie' for truck driver, 'uggies' for ugg boots, 'ambo' for ambulance drivers and things like that.”
In the study participants were introduced to an actor, who would use either the shortened slang or the normal terms in their conversation. After the interaction, participants were asked to rate each actor according to their “likeability”.
“What we found is that when the actor used the slang words, the participant likes them more after the experiment finished than if they didn't use them,” Dr Kidd said.
The research also found that accent was equally as important in terms of influencing the result, but interestingly, gender and race didn’t seem to have a bearing.
“Initially we used what you might think of as prototypical Australian, so white Caucasian Australians and we wanted to see if there was an effect of gender on that,” Dr Kidd said.
“We found that [gender] didn't have any effect, we still found this likeability effect in general. Then what we did was [get] a person of Asian background who spoke with an Australian accent, but also in another condition pretended to have a different accent.
“What we found was that when she spoke with an Australian accent we found the same likeability effect for her, but we didn't find it when she spoke in a foreign accent.”
This research is part of a series of studies examining generational change in the way Australians use slang words.
The research has found older Australians are more likely to shorten words with an “ie” sound or an “o”, while younger Australians are more likely to clip words to the first one or two syllables and add an “s” sound.
We’ve included a list of our 10 favourite Australian slang words below. And, in case you can’t get enough Australiana, this article shows 20 oddly-named Aussie suburbs.
Favourite Australian Slang terms:
- Arvo: afternoon
- Barbie: barbeque
- Bottle-O: bottle shop, liquor store
- Chockers: very full
- Esky: cooler, insulated food and drink container
- Fair Dinkum: true, real, genuine
- Grommet: young surfer
- Mozzie: mosquito
- Ripper: really great
- Sickie: sick day
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