Friday, June 5, 2009

Language Barriers

Ok -- so you can enjoy in my confusion... here is another interesting thing I experienced just today.

"Arvo"

I saw a note that said " Will return this arvo..." and I thought I was misreading the note, or possibly the letters I was seeing weren't real. This moment of confusion and wonderment actually made me ask my in-laws what in the heck was an "Arvo".

So here I stealed myself to ask, got up the gumption to say something to Jill and very innocently said "Um, this may sound stupid, but what is an arvo?" To which she giggled quietly and said, "arvo is a very Australian word... it means afternoon." Then she turns to Alan (who as of yet hadn't heard my question) and said, "Alan, Gen want's to know what an arvo is." And of course he also chuckled and said, "afternoon of course".

Here I am learning a whole new language, and I thought we all spoke English, silly me.

FYI - with a quick search online you can find the history and definition of "arvo".
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ar⋅vo [ahr-voh]

–noun Australian Slang.
afternoon.

Origin:
1930–35; af(ternoon) + -o, with voicing of -f-; ar is r-less speaker's representation of low back vowel
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

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