This guy offers hope for the whole world, and restored respect from the other nations of the world to the US. Watch him talk, Powerful stuff... Go Obama, Go!
Australia "Barracks for Obama"
Wolfie!
* A Play on words, "Barrack" means "Rooting for" in Australia.
[Yes, I know it's spelt differently]
I will correct him on one thing, There's no such thing as "Clean coal" though,
Both Obama and McCain have spoken of that.
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Seeing the Lunar X, Friday, November 8, 2024
23 hours ago
Not entirely, 100%, iron-clad sure on this - but I always believed that the team you were "barracksing" was the one you were against. It was one some Australian English site or other.
ReplyDeleteMy old English teacher ran a column
"(Side note: The Wet (sic) Australian newspaper for years ran a column called "My Word" by one PD Jeans, in which Peter would write a small discourse on..."
and I think that's where I read it. PD Jeans was arrogant and cocksure and pedantic, but he was rarely wrong...
The above quote comes form a HUGE archive page on my blog at http://tedalog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html but a better bet would be to contact The West Australian newspaper and ask about archived bits...
Found him! http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780867780499/Jeans-Peter/My-Word-Digressions-on-Language-Literature-and-Life/ that's where the book is available.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's interesting.
ReplyDeleteSo the word has gone through a complete change... a bit like "Sick" for a while which came to mean "Good" but all it made me want to do is chunder. hehe!
I wonder if you've seen Kate on "Can we help?" on ABC, It would be great to ask her about it.
Unsurprisingly for English, to "barrack" means to either shout for (cheer), or shout against (jeer):
ReplyDeletehttp://wordsmith.org/words/barrack.html
In Australia to barrack for a team simply means to support it - no shouting required. I haven't heard anyone say they barrack against a team, so the "for" is often dropped as implicit.
That said, "Barrack for Obama" would remove any confusion. :)
Well whatever the word, the team won.
ReplyDeleteand there's a new situation in the world which feels good.
The crowds have gone home and the Gulls will get free chips.
We'll keep our memories, it's not often that something really great happens in this jaded old world.
Wolfie!