Something that always makes me laugh. Australian sign language, as told by Adam Hills.

This Friday, in the hopes you will have a chuckle all weekend, I thought I would do something different and share one of my favourite Australian comedians with you, the lovely Adam Hills. He is one of those comedians that is unfailingly nice and always hilarious.

Everything he does amuses me, but as a person that loves words and language this show about Auslan (Australian sign language) he did at the 2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival has a special place in my heart.

My favourite part of this clip starts at about the 3:20 mark, and is about a very Australian phrase loosely translating as ‘I am very annoyed with you, and everyone around you’.

I will give you a language warning before you watch it in case you are of delicate sensibilities.

Awww, it’s not that bad, go ahead and watch it. I guarantee that you will laugh, and possibly be tempted to make up some of your own sign language. If nothing else you will have learnt an amusing Australian phrase that should not be used in polite company.

If you enjoyed that clip, here is a link to another show where he has an Auslan interpreter on the stage with him. He incorporates her into the show wonderfully, saying things just to see what she will sign through her laughter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtW-RtMJkwY (I love the bit where he asks if there are any deaf people in the audience and a bloke calls out ‘pardon?’)

Happiness, to the bitter end. 1937 (and 2012).

Western Mail 30 Sept 1937 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article38696902

Happiness is something that doesn’t just happen to you, you have to put in a bit of effort yourself, to be open to it. The more you look for happiness the more of it you will find.

Happiness is scared of miserable people, and avoids them wherever possible.

I love the way this 1937 article puts it, that happiness is a light, and we may keep it burning if we will.

I have started this post by writing nicely about happiness in order to butter you up, so you will keep reading when this post degenerates into a fart joke.

When we go camping the kids and I always end up playing Go Fish over and over. Often it ends in some kind of battle scenario where someone has won too many times, annoying the other two of us to the point where we gang up on that one to ensure they are taken down.

Over Easter weekend we were playing and I was out, leaving the two boys to battle to the death over the last few cards. I started doing a commentary on them, and to get the full effect, please read this next bit in a deep, monster-truck announcer style voice. So here we are, number one and number two, battling it out to the bitter end. Who. Will. Win?!

They are little boys, so when they started laughing at my commentary naturally one of them let out a bit of stray wind, making them laugh even harder. I tried to look sternly at them, as a mother should, then, through his laughter number two spluttered ‘that was my bitter end’ dissolving us all into hysterics.

You see, on the outside I might be a grown woman, but not so deep down inside I am really a twelve-year-old tomboy.

From now on I can tell that every time someone uses the term ‘the bitter end’ around us we are going to flash back to Go Fish out in the bush and a farting nine-year-old…..

It is the small things that make us happy :)

Household Lingo No 2- Monkeys.

Here is another post about the words our family use as a substitute for what we really mean…..

Household Lingo No 2.

Monkeys.

Monkeys is used a lot here, I have only recently realized how much!

If the kids are being too noisy I will grumpily call out ‘shut your monkeys!’ or ‘zip your monkey!’ This is me telling them that they are sounding like monkeys who need to be quieter or risk being turfed out the door to play outside in the trees. It is a polite way of saying SHUT UP!

Number 1 son used monkey yesterday (prompting this post) and completely cracked me up even though he was using it as a substitute for swearing.

We had taken the dog for a walk to the river and were dropping in at the shop on the way home. No 1 had waited in the car with the dog. As we walked back to the car with our booty I unlocked it with the remote. Clearly No 1 wasn’t aware we were returning, and the unexpected noise of all the doors unlocking was quite a shock. As I sat down in the driver’s seat all I heard was ‘wow, you scared the monkeys out of me!’ My brain suddenly filled with an image of a group of tiny, terrified monkeys pouring out from under his t-shirt and fleeing for their lives through the open car door!

The Night Monkey.

Son number 2 even blames the night monkey when night-time mischief gets him in trouble. On the left is his picture of the night monkey in a landscape of floating and mysterious buildings. His shadowy tail is only visible in the dark by the light of his evilly glowing eyes.

We also use monkey to remind the kids that they need to stop jumping around; ‘sit down monkey’, to let them know that their antics are amusing us; ‘you funny monkey’…. hmmm…. actually, we use it for everything!

Household Lingo No.1- Laughing Like a Big Fat Spider.

I was thinking last night about how each family has things that only they say. You know, a word (or an entire phrase) that only your nearest and dearest will understand the underlying meaning of. We all have them. Sometimes they are a nonce word that has fallen into regular usage, at other times they are a normal word used for a completely different purpose. Often we can’t even remember where they came from, we just say them.

I am aware that we have quite a few in our home, but when I was writing last night how hard do you think it was to remember them?! They are in such common use that it is hard to single them out.

Household Lingo No.1.

Laughing (short for laughing like a big fat spider).

One we use a lot here is ‘laughing like a big fat spider’. This is what we use to let everyone know all is well.

If I pull up to an intersection with the man of the house in the passenger seat he will say ‘laughing’ meaning the traffic on this side is clear, it is safe to proceed. If I am at the door, keys in hand and ask if everyone is ready to go, the reply will be ‘laughing’.

As far as I know big fat spiders are no more inclined to laugh than skinny ones, and in any case I have never heard either type do so. Nevertheless, in our house if we say laughing, our mental image is immediately a large and happy spider.

I have no idea where we originally picked this up from but we have been saying it for years. Thanks to the interweb, I know we are not the only people in the world that say it, but I have never heard anyone else say it unless they have been infected by us.

I have called this post Household Lingo No.1 as I am going to start paying attention to what we all say, and hopefully add more of them to the list. Please feel free to share any of the specialized lingo that might live at your house too, I would love to hear it!

Imaginative cursing.

This is an extra post for the day. I am still chuckling about this, and had to share it.

Sometimes my kids come up with the best insults or curses I have ever heard. We discourage swearing in our house, and encourage and reward imaginative use of language. That can be a deadly combination. A perfect example is what a hysterically laughing son no 2 shouted at Mario while playing the Wii tonight, probably the best one I have heard for a while.

Damn your scurvy buttocks!

We only frown upon damn here if it is used in a lazy way. Sometimes a curse is all the better for a damn slotted in there somewhere.