"cozzie bathing suit. I have only heard this British slang for bathing costume once since arriving in Perth, and that was from a New Zealand-born Brit. However, the Oxford Australian lists it as Australian slang. Aussie tj e-mailed to say that her New South Wales nieces and nephews use cozzie. Aussie Taryn East also finds cozzie (along with swimmers) the commonly used term in New South Wales (where Sydney is the capital city)."
OK, so let's look a bit further. Seems my Australian friends have quite a few terms for swim + suit plus a few other assorted beach/surfer terms...
This list of Aussie slang for beach terms should help you out:
Cossie/cozzie – swimming costume.
It helps to note that Australians call a swimsuit a swimming costume, thus the cossie is short for costume.
Bathers – swimsuit
Togs – swimming costume
Budgie smugglers – speedo-like swimming costume
Check out the slang post I wrote on budgie smugglers to get a longer explanation on this type of cossie. Although iron men and professional swimmers wear this type of garment, there is no better spokesman for budgie smugglers than Tony Abbott.
Sunnies – sunglasses
The Aussies really missed out on this one. Shades is a perfectly good word for sunglasses and it is actually shorter than “sunnies”.
Thongs – flip-flops
This one still gets me. I can’t help but associate thongs with underwear, so taking your thongs to the beach can have a very different meaning to some people.
Boardies – board shorts
These are the same as swimming trunks pretty much.
Grommet – someone new to surfing
I would really enjoy knowing where this term originated from. Anyone?
Shark biscuit – someone new to surfing
It’s kind of funny this term, but also a little terrifying.
Surfies – surfers
I’m going to ask the million dollar question: “Why?!” Surfers seems like a pretty adequate word on its own.
So there you go, got any other swimming related terms to add to the list?
No comments:
Post a Comment