Re: [Conlangs-Conf] Witty slogan

  On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 Peter Bleackley wrote:
[snip]
> It's a quote from the song "Land Down Under" by "Men at Work".
>
> "Buying bread from a man in Brussels,
> He was six foot four, and full of muscles,
> I said `Do you speak my language?'
> He just smiled, and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.
>
> He said...(Chorus)
> 'Oh, you come from a land Down Under,
> Where the women glow and the men chunder.
> Can you hear, can you hear that thunder?
> You'd better run, you'd better take cover."
>
> Vegemite is a yeast extract spread, originating in Australia. Said by its
> devotees to taste much better than Marmite, but since the range of "Tastes
> much better than Marmite" still encompasses "Absolutely vile", I've no
> intention of trying it.
Pete,

You wuss! ;-)

I was born and bred in Vegemite-land, and absolutely
love the stuff.  There's an old advertising jingle for
it which used to play in the picture theatres (no "movies"
for us Aussies back then) to a black and white film.  It
begins:
"We're happy little Vegemiters,
bright as bright can be.
We all enjoy our Vegemite
for breakfast lunch and tea ..."

A few years back it was recycled for TV, with little red
blotches smeared on the kids'cheeeks (very unaesthetic,
but good for a giggle).

My wife smears a delicate tincture of Vegemite on the
butter which she lavishly slathers on her bread.  OTOH,
I (manfully!) eschew butter on my chewables, and paste
Vegemite on like I had the Clag (TM) bottle open and
wanted to make sure I didn't lose my little gold star.
Heaven!

But as you said, Marmite is absolutely vile, totally foul,
a veritable putrid excrescence ...

So perhaps I am (still) a happy little Vegemiter! :-)

-------------

Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> On 3/13/06, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
> > > Buying bread from a man in Brussels
> > > He was six foot four and full of muscles
> > > I said, "Do you speak my language?"
> > > And he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
> >
> > *wince*
>
> Are you wincing at the thought of eating a Vegemite sandwich, or at
> the writing?  Maybe specifically at the awful "language"/"sandwich"
> rhyme?
Wot ARE u talking about?  "sandwich" is a perfectly good,
even an exact rhyme for "language".  Youse guys might spell
it with "wich", but our mob offen spells it with a "widge" -
that's how we say it, anyway ... unless we're "putting on the
jam"!

> If I recall the song well enough, the singer's version of "language"
> sounds like it has an [EdZ)] on the end, making it an even worse
> rhyme; for him,  "sand wedge" would be better.  But then, instead of
> trying to figure out what the heck "chunder" means, we'd all be
> wondering what a "Vegemite sand wedge" was for.  That must be some
> freaked-out golf course, man.
;-)  That's ['sand"wIdZ)], u no.  Just like ['laN"gwIdZ] ...

----------

Sai replied:

> > Are you wincing at the thought of eating a Vegemite sandwich, or at
> > the writing?  Maybe specifically at the awful "language"/"sandwich"
> > rhyme?
>
> The latter two, plus the punnish segway from original topic.
"SegWay" as in "trendy means of transport"?
Or "segue" as in "follow-up, sequence"?


> Never tried vegemite, and my culinary... taste is pretty oddball
> already, so I'd be willing to. It's vegetarian after all.
:-)  Good on yer! (*)


[snip]
>
> *nod* I recognize the song now that I got more lyrics from it. Oddly,
> people know it here - though it's practically never sung and never on
> the radio that I can think of.
>
> FWIW, I've always heard it sung as "men plunder" not "chunder". WTF is
> "chunder"?
Do u (*) REALLY wanna find out?  It means the same
as a great Aussie euphemism, "technicolour yawn" (#),
which I hope ur imagination will enable u to
comprehend ...

(*) Note "yer" and "ya" were suited to the epoch of
Barry "Bazza" McKenzie, who popularised and possibly
invented the saying at (#) in the 60s, and even to the
earlier epoch of John O'Grady ("Nino Culotta"), author
of "They're a Weird Mob" and "Let's Talk Strine" etc
a few years earlier.  2day, of course, as we furiously
text each other the silliest little jokes, we have to save
on the # of letters we use, so now we just type "u" and
"ur".  Not long back, I read that SMS has changed the
common notion of correct English spelling for good.
Some might say that there *was* no common notion of
English spelling any longer, since teachers don't teach
or correct it, except perhaps in English class, and also
that SMS has changed spelling for bad, not for good ...

ObConLang:  Does anyone have ConWorlders with
peculiar dietary tastes?

Regards,
Yahya

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