Are you someone who likes to use insults? I must admit that I don’t use a lot of insulting language as I don’t want to offend anyone. However, growing up in Australia means that I am very familiar with it. Many Aussies use quite colourful language and there is a wide variety of insults to choose from. This week’s common Aussie slang, drongo, is one of them.
A drongo is ‘a fool, a simpleton, an idiot’ (Australian National University). In other words, someone who is either not smart or behaves in a silly way without thinking. I’m sure we have all behaved like a bit of a drongo at one time or another.
I just want to point something out before I go on. Often, when an Aussie uses an insult, they’re not actually trying to be offensive. It may just be their way of being friendly, especially if the insult is accompanied by a smile, a wink, and a welcoming demeanour.
I remember the term drongo from my childhood. There are other insults starting with ‘d’ that were also used when I was a child, like dipstick and dropkick. These expressions have coarser origins, so I won’t go into them in this post. What’s interesting about these insults, though, is that they sound relatively inoffensive. The use of swear words was frowned upon in the past, so Aussies came up with alternatives. Quite clever, really. So, we were able to insult each other without being told off for swearing.
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Glossary
insult – a rude and offensive remark or action
offend – to make someone upset or angry
colourful language – language that some people consider to be rude or offensive
point something out [phrasal verb] – to tell someone about some information, often because you believe they do not know it or have forgotten it
offensive – likely to make people angry or upset
accompanied by someone/something – provided with or existing at the same time as something
demeanour – the way that someone looks. seems, and behaves
coarse – rude and offensive
go into – to describe, discuss, or examine something in a detailed way
inoffensive – not likely to upset anyone or make them angry
swear – to use language that people think is rude or offensive
frown upon something – to disapprove of something
alternative – different to what is usual or traditional
tell someone off – to speak angrily to someone because they have done something wrong
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