quicko: bub and mum

If I were to pick the Australian word annoying me most at the moment, I think I’d go with “bub.”  “Bub,” for the Americans reading, is baby talk for “baby” – not the nickname of your psycho neighborhood redneck.

I guess it’s getting my goat these days because it pops up so often in my facebook newsfeed – by adults, who theoretically had long since graduated from baby talk themselves.  One would think.

Correspondingly, I’m also quite un-fond (yes, of course that’s a word) of “mum” and even more un-fond of “mummy.”  “Mummy” is just plainly the wrong word – it’s November, we’re fully past Halloween territory and only an exceedingly limited number of you can claim any real legitimacy to Egyptian archaeology – and “Mum” is too reminiscent thereof.  Besides, it’s weird.

Perhaps you’ve now gathered that the “mum and bub both home and doing well” number is rather topping my hit-list of phrases (along with the perpetually irksome “look like” – “but what does that look like in our lives?”).  It’s not that I mind hearing about new babies (I’d much prefer baby news than preschooler news, if I had to pick), I just don’t like the words.  Looking for an alternative?  Rubber baby bugger bumpers are way better.

quicko: pass the parcel

I learned a new Australian game over the weekend -- pass the parcel!  Generally it seems this is played at children's parties, but seeing as I'd never encountered it before, I was rather amused by it.  Basically the idea is that hosts wrap up a large series of small gifts -- in our case, mini koala toys, Mars bars and magnets, all with Bible verses -- each in their own sheet of newspaper with all the previous gifts.  Our parcel is going to the Jesus Club, which is a group of adults with disabilities who meet for socializing and Bible study.  I think the idea is that it gets passed as the music plays and, when it stops, the person holding it gets to open one layer and keep the present.

quicko: children

I feel like I ought to have cultural observations on children, but I really don't.  It's not so much children are seen and not heard as I hardly ever see them.  Aside from knowing that they wear uniforms to school and that the little ones play in a "creche" rather than a "nursery" at church, I've hardly interacted with any children since coming to Australia.  Presumably they have them.