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Fair Dinkum Harassment
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by Jordan Yerman | August 10, 2007 at 08:51 am
478 views | 10 Recommendations | 8 comments
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I read stuff like this and do a bit of a lizard laugh in my mouth:
AN Australian woman was branded a criminal by airline officials after "swearing" on an American flight - with a classic, and utterly inoffensive, Aussie oath."Fair dinkum," NSW woman Sophie Reynolds muttered when told by a air hostess that there were no pretzels for her to snack on.
The next thing Reynolds knew, the flight crew had demanded her passport to note down her details, telling her that swearing at attendants was a crime.
The 41-year-old, who lives in Queanbeyan, near Canberra, was stunned to find three uniformed officers waiting for her when she left the flight in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"They said: 'You swore at the hostess and there are federal rules against that'," Reynolds told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"And I said: 'I did not swear at the hostess, I just said 'fair dinkum'."
"Fair dinkum" is a pretty old-school phrase, and is not used much these days, but this is yet another case of jittery flight staff overreacting to imagined threats. Skywest claimed that there was "agressive behavior throughout the flight", but never pressed any charges-- surely, if they had a case, they'd have pursued the issue? Two sides to every story, but Skywest's version is rather unsatisfying; it doesn't sound like she was really giving 'em a gobful.
Had she asked if she could take out her chewie (chewing gum), would the crew have cowered in fear of a wookiee?
Tangentially, the lack of pretzels on North American flights makes me want to swear, though I tend to hold my tongue,e ven when I'm about to spit the dummy.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (8)
at 09:07 on August 10th, 2007
Crivens! what a right bunch of mudlin bigjobs. It takes a real scunner to react like that, their heads must be stuck in the cludgie! - but I digress.
at 09:00 on August 10th, 2007
made me smile -> Good stuff.
at 09:44 on August 10th, 2007
When I was in Oz, I nearly bought a touristy t-shirt that read "Adelaide: Fair Dinkum Aussie", just as a laugh. Good thing I didn't, or I'd have been branded an outlaw!
at 10:03 on August 10th, 2007
now you're on the list....
at 00:18 on August 14th, 2007
Dinkum is Chinese (Mandarin Word) It means, "Real Gold"
Recently when those UK troops were captured by Iran, the story came out that the ADF had also been involved in an Identical incident. When they were asked why they were not taken as hostages, the CO explained that they used QUOTE "Colourful Language" to repel the Iranian guards, and they suggested the the UK troops might like to try it if it happened again.
at 00:26 on August 14th, 2007
"The Australians escaped capture by climbing back on board the
ship they'd just searched. I'm told that they set up their
weapons.
"No shots were exchanged but the Iranians backed off and the
Australians were able to get helicoptered off that ship and they
didn't get captured.''
He did not mention the name of the Australian ship. Australian
ships rotate through duties in the Gulf, chiefly searching
ships.
"What I'm hearing is that it was a pretty robust attitude by the
Australians,'' Gardner told the ABC.
"The words that somebody said to me was that they used pretty
colourful language"
at 00:29 on August 14th, 2007
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran 'unable to take Australians'Iranian naval forces in the Gulf tried to capture an Australian Navy team but were repelled, ... using what was said to be "highly colourful language".
at 14:53 on August 10th, 2007
This story and the witty comments made me laugh big time. Having lived in Australia, I have heard "fair dinkum" many times. It's a great expression!. It is always spoken as a question, so even if you do not understand it you would detect from the tonal-range that it was not a swear word. You are right jordan, it's not used much nowadays - shame.