I cannot read Australian slang but when I'm actually talking to people it makes too much sense
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Yeah nah it gets worse when you write it down, like reading Shakespeare opposed to seeing it performed.
Mate that is the greatest metaphor
Or you can say ripper of an analogy
Couldn't read it for shit back in high school, but seeing it performed instantly made everything make sense.
I like the german word for that: Blechschaden.
Literally means: Sheet metal damage.
Pretty descriptive.
Same goes for Dutch. Blikschade.
Also, onomatopoeic.
Every time there’s a discussion about language on lemmy, someone writes a German word and someone else comments a weird incantation.
Only if you can't read German though.
ch-sch has a very smooth transition from the back to the front of your mouth.
Unless you're Swiss. Then it's onomatopoeic.
Ummm no.
The ch-sch transition is the same in swiss german. It would be Blächschadä though. Depending on the dialect.
Source: am swiss
I don't think kkkkch-sch sounds particularly smooth but you do you
A dictionary is descriptive not prescriptive.
If Aussies wanna say bingle for a prang, they can go right ahead
We have them too, they are different though. Last time I had a prang I was on my pushy.
As someone who doesn't have the luxury of distinction in my dialect of English, when is a bingle a bingle and when is a prang a prang? Is the line between the two or is there a third, yet to come up, term
Feel like a bingle is more like when you reverse into a pole or scratch the bumper, or maybe rear end/reverse into another vehicle at <10km/h. Prangs require panel beating and maybe a trip to the hospital.
Ah interesting I think we would maybe say dinged if it was a minor superficial bump, prangs go from there up to about what you described, generally no one gets hurt in a prang over here though. After that it's probably just crash until you get to the totaled/wrote-off territory
Yeah, I think "dinged" and "bingle" are pretty interchangeable. And a hospital trip from a prang is probably more for whiplash or a sprain - not broken bones in traction or being admitted to ICU... You can definitely have an injury-free prang, though, I agree.
"dinged" when your car gets hit by a trolley, "bingle" when you back into a bollard, "prang" when you get rear-ended at stop lights.
This interpretation is solid. I've lived in various regions over about a 2000km span of the east coast, and noticed usage varies a bit depending on where you are.
(Kind of jarring when you find yourself talking cross purposes with someone of the same nationality and almost identical accent - like when I moved to Qld and discovered some people up there have a very different interpretation of the word "toey" from what we do down south... 😅 )
its a beautiful language
To be fair, "fender bender" sounds like it could be Australian, too, if said in an Australian accent.
Fendo bendo
Feendah beendah
Mine wasn't the accent, it's in reference to the fact that half their slang consists of abruptly ending a word in o and calling it a day.
Oh naur. I guess that went above my head.
If you said fendero bendero, though, it would have a latin flair.
Can confirm.
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The thing is we typically say “guard” instead of “fender” when referring to the car body panel surrounding the wheel. Although this could be regional within Australia
In Finnish you would say "kolari", which is sort of "kolahdus" as in "a clunk" / "crash" with a diminutive at the end.
So like, "clunkito", or "crashito."
Even when it's a big one. Although then you tend to veer into territory where you'd describe it as an "unfortunation", if it's sever enough. (Onnettomuus,)
Is a bingle the same as a fender-bender?
Excuse you... that is a bingle-bangle.
Funbucket, is that you?
no way 
This is why when celebrity Lara Bingle's career took a bit of a nose dive, it was funny as hell. But it's not a commonly used word in my social group.
It's so funny, non Australians complaining about Australia slang mirrors foreigners complaining when learning English. E.g. people think Australians are crazy for giving toilets an "immature" and "toy like" name in the form of dunny, but potty is also immature and toy like.
The only people who say potty are children and people talking to children.
And people talking to their pets :)
In that case the pets are being treated like children
My cat is my child, etc
We don't call them 'fur babies' for nothing.
Most people just call them pets
I can't explain why but I absolutely hate the word "potty" and refuse to use it. Something about it is like digging splinters in underneath my fingernails, but in my soul. Luckily I don't have kids, but when I'm around my nephews and one of them says they have to "go potty" I hate it, every time.
My kids used a potty when they were potty training. A potty is a cunningly fashioned piece of plastic that children shit and piss into once they're big enough not to use nappies, but too small for a toilet. Calling a toilet a potty is infantilising and weird.
... Anyway that's why I think I sounds off to use that word.
My dad sometimes uses that word, and he's in his sixties. But then again, he and my mom had six kids and had kids in potty training for a long cumulative amount of time. The word just stuck I guess.
Try switching to shitta,
I apologise for my potty mouth
It's evolution forking them from us so later we can fork them as crabs.... Sorry, I meant evolution is dinglehoppering them from us.
Their ancestors had a long long time on a prison transport with nothing else to do. Now they have a long long time in a desert with nothing else to do. It’s why they’re good at cricket. A long long time with nothing else to do.
It sounds whimsical until you hear the people saying it.
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