AUKUS
Posted by observer on April 9, 2024, 6:13 pm
The Australia, British, American partnership will be working together helping Australia to acquire nuclear submarines. I don’t know any details about the building of the subs, but it reminds me of a factoid I found interesting about the Australian military. Because their equipment, primarily aircraft come from the US, Britain and France (perhaps elsewhere for all I know), and because those countries each had differing systems of measurement, the Aussies (pronounced Auzzies, not Aussies), had to have three different sets of tools. Perhaps no big deal for them, but all I had to compare it with was my set of kitchen measuring tools that varied with the country of origin’s recipes and system of measurement. Even on such a small scale it could be confusing. The submarines are not likely to be subject to multiple systems, but the three different countries working together will surely be interesting. It even happens in the vocabulary: Plimsoll Sneaker Sand shoe vest under shirt tee shirt hood bonnet cowling And on it goes. Then there are common innocent phrases acceptable in one culture and rude in another. But to me Aussie ‘Strine’, slang, is the most fun and creative of all, even better than the Brit’s’ cockney. They do the rhyming slang, too, as i ‘trouble and strife’ for wife, and the opposites where redheads are called blues; and if they’re more formal, they frown on it. Sweet memories all brought on by AUKUS. Oh yeah, and my kids learned the metric system and had no problem switching to US measurement. It’s the old dogs trying to learn new tricks who may struggle.
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