“Australians are descended from a boatload of English convicts, right? So two hundred years in isolation at the bottom of the planet is plenty of time for the language to evolve into some sort of double-speak prison slang.”
“[Senator Bill] O'Chee: What do I have to do to be an Australian, because my family has been in this country for a hundred and ten years[78-year-old woman on incoming telephone call]: It doesn't matter.O'Chee: I've got to look English, have I?Old Lady: YesO'Chee: What about the Aboriginies?Old Lady: They're Australian, too.O'Chee: Can I just get this down for the record -- you can look Aboriginal and be an Australian, or you can look English and be an Australian, but you can't look Asian and be an Australian?Old Lady: That's right.”
“I speak two languages: English and Sarcasm.”
“Hey, any idea why Australians speak something that sounds deceptively like English but isn’t? I mean, I’m trying to figure out why I can’t seem to converse with another human being who speaks the same language as I do.”
“The act of vagabonding is not an isolated trend so much as it is a spectral connection between people long separated by place and time, but somehow speaking the same language.”
“I found cause to wonder upon what ground the English accuse Americans of corrupting the language by introducing slang words. I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks' stay in London than in my whole "tenderloin" life in New York. But I suppose the English feel that the language is theirs, and that they may do with it as they please without at the same time allowing that privilege to others.”