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Comment by mrspeaker | Hacker News Reader

I overheard a US coworker explain that "Australians say 'dollar-y-doos' instead of 'dollars'" - because they'd heard me say it a bunch. But I got it from The Simpsons making fun of Australians... so now it's kind of actually true.

(there's still no truth about Fosters Beer or "Bloomin' onions" though!)

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I have a very similar story through a Canadian rather than an Australian lens.

I'm a Canadian that says "Eh". But I wasn't born in Canada, and I didn't grow up saying it, and none of my friends when I moved here said "Eh."

When I'm around Americans, they KILL themselves laughing whenever I say Eh. I am the epitome of a Canadian stereotype to them.

But...I finish sentences with "Eh" because Homer Simpson finishes his sentences with "Eh", and I grew up obsessed with The Simpsons..

But...Homer Simpson only says "Eh" because Dan Castellaneta's father says "Eh". Dan Castellaneta's father is Canadian.

I also have a somewhat similar story, through a US lens:

I'm an American who calls Kraft Dinner, well, Kraft Dinner (instead of "Kraft Mac N' Cheese" as it's branded here in the US) specifically because 1) I'm a BNL fan and 2) "Kraft Dinner" is much less of a mouthful to say (but just as much of a mouthful to eat, naturally). I also like poutine, hockey, and maple syrup.

On that note, it's pretty interesting to me how bidirectional the cultural influences are between Canada and the US. Not entirely surprising, given that we're neighbors and all and already pretty similar culturally (comparatively speaking), but it's fascinating to me how much popular-in-the-US music and television ultimately comes from Canada.

I see it called Kraft Dinner here in the southeast US. I figured since roux-based mac and cheese is a staple in southern cooking, they wanted to let everyone know to expect something quite different. But now I see on their website the full name is "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner".

Something that most Australians don't even seem to realize is that Foster's group is indeed the maker of beers like VB. They simply don't sell anything branded Foster's in Australia, but they are very Australian.

Australian here.

Fosters do sell Fosters branded beer here.

Foster’s Classic Lager, and Foster’s Light Ice are two that immediately spring to mind.

Fair enough, though I don't think I ever encountered it when I lived there several years ago.

Aussies like to joke about how terrible a beer it is, it’s not popular in Australia

They seem to have made the rounds in bottle shops in recent years. The first time I ever saw Fosters anywhere was in a bottle shop in Hobart after having lived in Queensland for 10 years.

So they’re on the way to their own Pizza Effect?

Potentially. Does it count if it did use to be consumed in its country of origin though?

I'd wager the same is true for the "drop bears" meme, right? I've seen it on Reddit and trying to google it turned into a rabbit hole of Reddit threads that all eventually resulted in "it's a joke, duh" but with enough time passing, I'm sure some Australians have picked it up as a joke in real life.

drop bears pre-date reddit by decades..

Hoop snakes too

I first saw it on usenet way back in the 90's and I am sure its much older than that

Oh, didn't realize that, sorry. Point still applies, though, I suppose - an internet meme ascending its initial uses to become widespread.

Drop bears are a perfectly serious topic, which is why even the Australian Museum has a page about Thylarctos plummetus.

https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/mammals/drop-b...

Yeah, I want to echo this. The recent-ish rise in drop-bear attacks is also a bit of a pizza effect. It seems that the increase can be traced back to a bacteria that irritates the mouth of the drop bear, making them more prone to attacking humans and other large creatures. Recent results state that the bacterial strain was a mutant strain that originated in a Swedish zoo exhibit of drop bears that were on loan from the Australian government. When one of the mating pair was returned to Australia, the bacteria spread like wildfire (no pun intended) to the wild populations and captive ones. More can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

The amusing thing is, Australians never fail to create a new cultural device, bound to cause confusion. s'truth, no wuckers, cunts.

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