The Whole Brevity Thing

I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. - From the Big Lebowski

Australians are very much into the whole brevity thing. There are not too many words here that are not somehow shortened. The most famous is surely G'’day, but there are many more. Here are a few examples:

Brolley = Umbrella
Barbie = Barbeque
Roo = Kangaroo
Esky = Cooler by way of Esky being short for Eskimo, famed for living in an Igloo, which is a major brand of coolers.
Ute = Utility Vehicle or as Americans call them pick-up trucks.
Garbo = Garbage Man or Sanitation Engineer
Rego = Vehicle Registration

Now some of you may be thinking that Americans shorten barbeque to BBQ and that is true, but it only cuts down on letters not syllables. I have decided after many hours of scientific research that Americans are lazy writers and Australians are lazy speakers.

They take the brevity thing pretty seriously around here. On the first day of class, a professor read "Ben-ja-min" off the roll. I am not sure if it was habit or survival instinct from the death stares, but I quickly responded with a "just call me Ben." ” There we many appreciative glances. In my classmates’ eyes, I could see the relief that they would be saving two syllables anytime they had to refer to me.

With this appreciation in mind, I have attempted to come up with a few other abbreviations for our friends down under. I would suggest the following:

Spute (pronounced Spoot) = Sports Utility Vehicle or SUV
Nub = Night Club
Dri-Lic (pronounced Dry Lick) = Driver's License -– This way a police officer could ask for your dri-lic and rego. Having saved so many syllables, surely he/she might knock your speed downkilometersometres per hour.

Let's see how it would work.

Officer: Dri-Lic and rego - Crikey, you had this spute moving. Where is the fire?
Australian Driver: Sorry, it's my mates 21st and I am late getting to the nub.
Officer: Well, as we've saved about 14 syllables with these new terms, I'll let you off with a warning.

Obviously the time spent thinking about these was not wasted. The real world applications are really limitless and will help our antipodean friends save valuable syllables. I am sure there are many more. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way. As I am interning for a low level government official, I might be able to pull some strings and get it written on a bathroom wall.

-Ben