G'day mate

I just caught an article on the insidious nature of the Aussie accent, and I smiled wryly because its something that has come up a few times for me recently, largely because my mum has been visiting and she listens carefully for any hint of "Strine" in my voice.

I would like to keep my Jamie Oliver drawl for as long as possible, and I still have it after 4 years living in Sydney, but I suppose it must have mutated a little. I don't think any local would have any problems identifying me as a pom but perhaps a Londoner would detect a certain antipodean lilt to my vowel sounds. The strange thing for me is that I can no longer tell the difference between an Aussie accent and a "generic" (ie south-east-ish) English accent - they both just sound normal.

So, I want to keep my accent but on the other hand I have gleefully taken up a great deal of Aussie vocabulary. I got berated by Nick the other day for talking about finding "a park" as opposed to "a parking space". I hadn't even realised that the former is an Australianism, and isn't it a much less unwieldy way of saying it? I reckon I can make use of such handy terminology without sounding like I'm asking a question at the end of every sentence or pronouncing yes as yiii.

Besides, life would be a whole lot duller without the bottle-o (1), the stubbie (2) and longneck (3), and of course the eyebrow-raisingly graphic budgie smugglers (4).

(1) Off licence
(2) Small (375ml) bottle of beer
(3) Large (750ml) bottle of beer
(4) Trust me, you don't want to know