They’re a weird mob!

Many of our people have European names and origins. As a nation, we embarked upon a worthy immigration process after the Second World War. A burgeoning, developing land, we had desperate need of population to take us where we needed to go.

Thousands came, from every country through war-ravaged Europe. As a young man, I grew up with Poles, Dutch, Lithuanians, Greeks, Germans, French, Jugoslavs, Italians; you name a country and I had a friend who came from there.

Australia is (was?) a country of jokers. One of the most difficult things for our newcomers was not necessarily learning to speak English but understanding the frequently confusing Australian adaptation of the ‘Mother Tongue’. It’s a language with a plethora of subtleties and nuances – that many of us who were born to it don’t always understand all that well – made even worse by our own added twists and turns. This created a number of difficulties for our ‘New Australian’ friends.

An aunt, widowed during the war, became engaged to an ex-Polish air force Spitfire pilot. She brought him home to meet the family about 1950. It was summer and we were standing outside over a barbie and a beer. Stefan swung his hand and caught a mozzie. He proclaimed, loud and clear, “Got you, you bastard!”. Poor bugger (and there I go!) didn’t know the difference between Aussie idiom and polite speech.

Rhyming slang was another catch. My sister was keen on a Greek lad. We were all seated in our lounge, his family and ours, about to do justice to a dinner Mum was slaving over. One of our number was missing as Dad was to propose a toast. He asked, “Where’s David?” and Vasilis replied, “He go for a hard hit…!”

Now, if you’ll allow, I’ll slip in a joke from back then. It’s ‘on’ the Italians. My mate Joe – Giuseppe – and I were laughing about it over a beer only last week:

Gino and Mario arrived on a migrant ship. On their first day here, they went to St Kilda pier and ordered a hot dog each. Sitting in the sun, Mario opened the paper bag containing his snack. He took one look, quickly closed the bag and said, “Eh, Gino, what-a part of the dog did-a you get…?!”

That really does nothing to explain where I’m coming from, except to keep a bit of pertinent humour in the article. As a people, we always had a good outlook; certainly we laughed at others but, even more importantly, could take a serious dig at ourselves.

Now, finally, this is where “They’re A Weird Mob” enters the picture. It was written by John O’Grady in the 1950s. It featured an immigrant, Nino Culotta, a journalist who came out to write for an Italian publishing house. He was to produce articles about the Australian way of life for consumption in Italy, with a view to enhancing Italian emigration. The publishing house had gone broke and the would-be hack, instead of hacking away at a typewriter, ended up a brickie’s labourer.

Nino actually had a reasonable grasp of ‘proper’ English. The humour of O’Grady’s writing devolves upon Nino’s difficulty understanding how Australians – especially good, honest, hardworking folk – used the language. Nino had trouble with our twisted pronunciations, not to mention meanings that were somewhat different to those he might find in the Oxford dictionary.

The book was a humorous work with many a laugh and perhaps, at times, even a touch of discomfiture at how we treated our newcomers. It was a tongue-in-cheek social commentary that poked fun not at Nino and others who found us hard to get to know so much as our existing society.

Fifty-seven years ago, ‘They’re A Weird Mob’ was actually a satire on the immigrant country were already were – but failed to acknowledge. Sadly, there are probably a few among us who still don’t get the point.

What is your favourite Australian slang saying or word? Tell us in the comments below!