I love slang. One of the reasons why I love travelling and trying out different jobs in different industries is that I get to learn a whole batch of new slang each time.
Here are a couple from my recent time on the mine:
1. Parked up
When a truck or a bulldozer breaks down it gets parked up on the side of the road, waiting for maintenance. What I love is when this term gets spread around to include larger bits of machinery for example when, a couple of days ago, the whole rock-crushing facility here (the size of a factory) was parked up for an afternoon.
Even better is when it gets applied to people. The following is an example of real-life mine dialogue:
Supervisor: Where's Goose? Is he coming in today?
Operator: No boss, he crook. He parked up at home.
2. "He's got a brand new smile"
If you get into a fight in the bar and you rock up to work the next day with a tooth missing, that's what everyone's going to be saying about you.
1 comment:
I love parked up. I may need to start dropping that into conversation around here. Think of your power- you alone are responsible for the transmission of slang across the ocean
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