No Way Out

Aussies (pronounced Ozzies) have an incredibly weird tendency to name or pronounce things a tad, shall we say, differently than us. As the picture on the left illustrates, an EXIT becomes "Way Out" (also notice that Parking becomes Carpark, I guess no motorcycles need apply). Almost as if dumbing things down for a toddler just learning to speak, names take on their basic functional definitions. If not, then a name will be something completely obscure that makes no sense. This is when I realized that the writers of The Simpsons are beyond genius. A kid who scores 150 on an IQ test might be genius. The music of Beethoven is genius. But the "Bart vs. Australia" episode is beyond genius. Observe dear gentle readers.

Clerk: They're like kangaroos, but they're reptiles, they is.
Marge: We have them in America. They're called bullfrogs.
Clerk: What? That's an odd name. I'd have called them "chazzwozzers"

In fact, when I went to the zoo yesterday, I learned the Aussies have a problem with frogs brought over from the US to help control their sugar cane pests. Turns out the frogs ate the pests, the canes, and a few of their precious native insects.

Also at the zoo, I learned that the giraffes (pronounced girahhhhffes) have the best view of the city. But back to weird names. The inspiration for this post came from my attempt last night during dinner to order a cup of decaf coffee with my dessert. The whole scene was something along the lines:

Me: Do you guys have decaff?
W'tress: Yeah
Me: Well I'll just have a decaf coffee.
W'tress: What kind?
Me: Just coffee thanks.
W'tress: Yeah but what kind?
Mary: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...I forgot, you guys can't order coffee.
Me: What the f...?
Mary: He wants a flat white. Sorry I should have warned you. I even read about it in Bryson.

Well I did my own digging this sleepless morning (it's 7 AM Sunday morning here). And of course, Bryson says it much more eloquently than I ever could.

I didn't even know how to order coffee. It appeared that you had to specify length (principally long or short), a colour (black or white) and even an angle of orientation to the perpendicular (flat or not), and these could be put together in a multitude of permutations -- 'long black', 'short black', even 'long short black'. My own preference, I discovered after many happy hours of experimentation, was 'flat white'. It was a moment of the sublimest happiness. -- Bill Bryson, Down Under.

My hotel room, however, is fully equipped with a drip coffee maker. I never knew Mr. Coffee was meant to create a long flat white. But more importantly, the writers of The Simpsons did.

Marge: I'll just have a cup of coffee.
Bartender: Beer, it is.

Also, these guys have two flushes: a full flush and a half flush. The half one is for the likes of Disco Stu who live by the mantra, "If it's yellow, let it mellow."