Australia, despite its predilection for baby-talk – where else do you see burly men, covered in tattoos, with shaved heads and foot-long beards, say things like ‘The muzzies are biting, let’s get some stubbies and go watch some footy on the telly’?…
- The London Review of Books, ‘Romney, the Curse of the Trochee‘
Fair suck of the sauce bottle, cobber!*
Australian English abbreviations ending in ‘ee’ (if not ‘oh’) are not a form of “baby talk”. This is readily demonstrated by the fact that no one so addressed ever feels patronised or condescended to. In fact, they are an expression of solidarity— you would only talk in such a relaxed fashion to someone with whom you were well-acquainted or who was clearly of a friendly disposition, and never with someone whom you felt no affinity towards or were intimidated by. It has something in common therefore with ‘tu’ forms in French or ‘du/dich’ in German.
Also, it’s mozzies (= mosquitos), not muzzies.
Also, I trust the burly men are wearing Akubras and Drizabones whilst scratching the ears of the cattledogs standing on the backs of their utes. Or that they’re bushrangers!
* NB: No one ever says this.
