Australian Word of the Non Specified Time Period: Bloke/Wanker

Ok, first some house keeping measures.

The post on Vegemite is coming. I bought some over the weekend. Some people are in shock over this, but whatever. I am determined to like Vegemite, and I'm going to do it. You watch.

Second, the post on touch footy is coming....sometime. It would be this week, but they cancelled our games this week due to rain. I could write about my experience but it would boil down to "I ran around was confused". You, the devoted reader, deserve better than that.

(I do this for you, you know)

Anyway, bloke...and wanker.

Bloke seems like it might be a good name to call somebody. "Hey, you bloke!" But, its not really like that. Its more or less a term for "guy." In fact, when responding to another minister resigning from John Howard's cabinet, one of the opposition leaders said of Howard, "He's the bloke thats supposed to be in charge over there."

The Prime Minister...a bloke! Fantastic!

While bloke isn't a derogoratory term, its not exactly a compliment either, as you can see from that example. But, thumbing through my NRL preview magazine I ran across the phrase "the young blokes have to step up" and "its up to the older blokes"
So, think of it more as "guys"

If you want to go for an insult, I suggest "wanker". This isn't an insult on the biggest level. After all, I'm posting it here and on my blogs I tend to keep it G-rated.

Its more of a light hearted insult, really. Racking my knowlege if American English, we can use any swear kind of light hearted. I can think of many instances in which I've thrown around insults with friends of fairly high severity where we all laughed.

Good times.

For your friends its fairly light hearted.

"Haha, you wanker, you ran into me!"

You can also use it for people you don't know, though not to their face.

"That wanker is kind of dodgy."

And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.