Strine

For other meanings, see Strine (disambiguation).

Strine /ˈstraɪn/ is a term coined in 1964 and subsequently used to describe a broad accent of Australian English. The term is a syncope, derived from a shortened phonetic rendition of the pronunciation of the word "Australian" in an exaggerated Broad Australian accent, drawing upon the tendency of this accent to run words together in a form of liaison.

It was the subject of humorous columns published in the Sydney Morning Herald from the mid-1960s. Alastair Ardoch Morrison, under the Strine pseudonym of Afferbeck Lauder (a syncope for "Alphabetical Order"), wrote a song "With Air Chew" ("Without You") in 1965 followed by a series of books - Let Stalk Strine (1965), Nose Tone Unturned (1967), Fraffly Well Spoken (1968) and Fraffly Suite (1969). An example from one of the books: 'Eye-level arch play devoisters ...' ("I'll have a large plate of oysters").

In October 2009, Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, re-published all four books in an omnibus edition.

The naturalist and TV presenter Steve Irwin was once referred to as the person who "talked Strine like no other contemporary personality".

See also

• Australian English
• Diminutives in Australian English
• Monica Dickens

Sources

• Lauder, Afferbeck (A, A. Morrison) Let Stalk Strine, Sydney, 1965, page 9
• Steber, David. Strine and Amusing Language from the Land Down Under, Steber & Associates, 1990. (ISBN 1877834009)

External links

• The dictionary definition of strine at Wiktionary
• With Air Chew – Copyright registration copy of the song in the National Archives of Australia
• Some examples of Strine (includes audio files)

• The Oxford C ompanion to the English Language, Oxford University Press (1992), p. 990 (ISBN 0-19-214183-X)
• Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme, Thorndike Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-7862-8517-6)
• Freakish end to a wild life – The Age