Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Aussie Slang: Stuffed

In the United States, after a large meal, most people lean back in their chairs, loosen the belt, pat their gut, and remark, "Boy, I am stuffed!" This communicates a slightly different thing in Australia. Making such an utterance can still apply to the situation, but the implication is that eating all the food took a lot of work.

After a long day of work, Aussies become "stuffed" or exhausted. This is extremely common slang. I searched for the etymology in a dictionary, but it does not seem to be in there. My belief is that it comes from the other use of this word.

When a machine is broken, it is "stuffed" or "stuffed up". I am not an etymologist, so do not take my analysis as fact. Given the dustiness of Australia's soil, windy days puts a lot of the dust into the air. Eventually this dust settles in the machinery, stuffing it up full of dust. Anybody who has neglected to clean their computer for a long time knows how dust can stop the fan from functioning. Thus, machines "stuffed up" with dust don't work anymore. Eventually this was shortened to merely "stuffed". People soon developed the ability to get stuffed themselves, cause a tired worker is a broken worker. Or the machine had to work so hard with all the dust, it got "stuffed".

Again, I'm not a linguist or etymologist, so this is merely a theory. I'm still going to input this into my brain as fact, cause it sounds right to me.

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