Monday 15 June 2009

Fair go, Andy!


I pulled my miserable cold-laden head out of a Vicks infusion last Friday long enough to read Google News for Australia and discovered that Andrew Fraser over at The Australian (helped along by that perennial attention seeker, Bernard Salt) was having a go at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for his dated "folksy idiom".
Andrew complains "that only Australians over the age of 70 spoke like that these days".
Leaving aside the fact that 70 is really too high a bar for defining common use of Australian slang, the fact remains that older Australians now make up at least a quarter of the Australian population.
So if Rudders wants to occasionally pitch his song and dance routine to this demographic (which let's face it, is part of Liberal Party heartland) more power to him.
Andrew may not realise it but Baby Boomers like myself do use the odd "folksy idiom" or two and don't feel dated doing so.
As for Bernard Salt. Gawd, the chap thinks we are all channelling Chips Rafferty.
No Bernie - Rafferty was aping a mob just like us!

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