I've heard them talking I’ve cough, the whispers My sk in is th ic k . but the barbs penetrate "That Professor Lindsey Humph' A shameless word monger I" Verbose * "A lite r or y dilettante'" He tra ffics in unusual phrases, you km«» And those obscure words he uses W ell' He certainly has his a irs '" Are you sure he s Amer icon9 Sounds foreign to me Suspicious B ritis h A word p e rve rt' How can I defend m yself7 lm g u ilty I love words, the way they ro ll around in one s mouth, their histories, their stories I cache them away in my lexicon like a squirrel hoar ding nuts, a miser amassing coins I hopelessly love the little dears Ah . the stolen moments »pen, cuddling them in mv mind This month you can tastes few exotic, stolen fru its Join me inside the closet for a gi impse at some soucy little foreign number s The Professor . a well-known A uslrahophile. smuggled these bad from the Antipodes in a plain brown Manila envelope Down Under in that gr oat gray-green land, the English language spews from Australian mouths in the most wonderful fashion Witness this street corner exchange "Hey. Mugsy. saw you chiak ing w ith the Torquay Mob Friday woe* ' Yaeh. bloody drongoes Go, me pissed a, the Ashes Nearly chundered me lunch on some bloke Bit of a punch-up w ith two whingmg Pommie bastards in Bay 13 Old dag called the coppers " "Fair dink urn 9 W ell, she'll be rig h t, mate No w orries " What the deuce is going on here9 , you may well inquire Per haps the Professor s glossary of Australian English ( ‘Stnne as it is called there) can be of some help My translation follows Heh, Mugsy, vrw you goofing-off ( skylarking) with the guys from Torquay a week ago Friday " "Yeah, bloody ' a favorite epithet) low life rs Oot me drunk at the cr icket match Near ly vomited my lunch Bit of a fight w ith two Englishmen in the dr ink mg section ( Bay 13) at the Melbourne Cricket Orounds An old guy called the police " " T ru ly fo r re a lty ')9 Everything w ill beokoy. friend " This translation lose, essential flavor in the telling One ought to know that for many "True Blue" Ausstes a lj English are "whingmg bahstads Animosity toward the pompous English harks back to those days when the continent of Australia became the world's largest prison Many Australians trace their genealogical history to those same prisoners transported from B rita in in the 1780's Aussies tend to view the English as soft and spoilt, whingprs" in short Thew ordisan amalgam of whining and cringing, two loathsome tra its to Australians An Australian takes his lumps, and brushes adversity asidp. "No w orries mate' You II be r ig h t!‘ The notorious "Bay 13" at the Melbourne Cricket Orounds houses the 'hoons and goons" or yobbo ockors' (beer guzzlers and rouqhnecks) Cricket matches ar e extremely civilized affairs, but the rabble in Bey 13 lace themselves with gallons of beer and roar like lions in a feeding frenzy An "old dag ' is a senior gentleman who loiters, dawdles, and socializes, a gent one might typically find hanging around a new construction site bother ing people "Dag also refers to the ding that dangles from (he fleece on a sheep's bum Crotosor Lindsey s Australian Glossary 1 crook - out of sorts, sick Ex He felt a bit crook Tuesday 2 dronqo an ignor ant, low life character 3 lair gp you made a decent lob of it Not bad 4 A lu rk - o scheme, plan, short cut 5 Shonkip- broken, fa llin g apart 6 qroQ- beer 7 RfiUteJ- * 'n e B plonk - cheap wine 9 Wanker 's Doom- An awful fate befall ¡ng constant masturbators *0 YObbo ocker - a red neck worker type, loudmouth -chauvinistic, with a beer gut Wears blue "Stubbie' shorts, a haseball-stylecap and a sleeveless white “T" s h ir, constantly 11 OoindBush going walkabout Going off into the wilderness, or outback 12 Beyond the Bkt k Stump way off in the p rim itiv e country, the middle of nowhere 13 Barbie- a barbecue party Mainstay o, country social life Lots of steaks, lamb chops, and beer Madas aQqlah- flolahs are raucous, screechy parrots Very unsettled b ii ds Descr ibes a person who tsa b it off center 15 la r r ik in - a grxxJ natured bloke, but something of a hooligan 16 swaQ man hobo, carries hts pack of belongings in a bundle, his swaq", or "Matilda ’ 17 the beach surfline 19 tuc*er - 'ood. provisions providing s u s te n « « 20 take a >n»e'shi$3- urinate 2 1 "old b o i l e r an elder ly woman 22 Seppos or sePt'CS- a derogatory term for Americans Australians w ill pair two w o rd , ha, rhyme, in Cockney fashion, with another w nrdor term For example Dad and Dave- shave, Septic Tank- Ywik Captain Cook« a look 23 Nantes, btowies. bluet«, March ies- fly species a wave across une s lace with an extpryiwi arm to swa, away flies has been termed the Australian wave" or the "Australian National Salute Clouds of flies scourge the countryside d ir mg warm season-? I have r anked them fiere or di ra lly relative to ferocity "Marchie, can bubble blood on the sk m s surface .nd fiave a biting proboscis like the rose on a Concorde ,e, 24 White Anting- The term refers to a term ite who chews on a building's wood foundation, eventually causing the building Io collapse When a relationship between two people become-, strained, an outsider who infer feres for his own selfish ends is white w iling To commemorate the second brave new birthday of tho Upper Left Edge (Our Motto A ll the news we want to p rin t), our founder the near ly Reverend B illy Hubs ( His mo,to Nobody h its , everybody eats we get to love who we wan,), suggested ( sweetly. bu, in no uncertain terms) bow lovely it would be were this wr i, er t o * ' down his jumbled and unr el table mem or ies of the E dge s br ave new beginning Because of our love and respect for Reverend B illy , and because he pay- us (b its o, b r t^ i, coloured yarn carrots from the garden sometime a fresh fis h ), we decided to humor him F or a man of the r loth ( woo, and canvas most by ). he can ge, cranky when his word ser fs don', hop to But that s another story Before we ge, into the n ob ility of our mission ( , he tru th w ill set us free, and all that), decency demands a reminder of why people star' '«ewspapers quite sim ply, tor the giddy sense of power provides The power of the press rests in the hands of 'hose who own one One needn ' be the New York T imes to have dnrx/r ous and addictive amounts of fun and, Spencer Tracy movies aside, the reel joy of newspaper ing ( as distinct from wallpaper mg, which pays w e ll) lies in cock ling a, the chance to $*ew*f whoever and whatever you want This said, on to the noble bits If anything ran be said to have a beginning the Edge was pulled shr >ek ing and thrashing, from the womb of the Gulf War A loose km, uaba I of aging revolutionaries (see. Old I eft. Nm* l eft and Hew Improved le ft ) assembled Ihe morning after the nigh, Bagdad w ill never for get, to. urn, take matter s into our own hands fo r the record, our subversive cell consisted (e n tire ly ) of Reverend B illy , B ill Wick land ( now Ihe Edge s close to distinguished foreign correspondent), and myself As I recall, at leas, three of us had hangovers U ir '■>« and one we quick ,y launched was the Peace Paper Gather inQ together the 'alents of other agmQ malcontents ' port’ journalists, and activists v i l e and var ious ). we purloined aoomputef (you don , wan, to know whose) and published what might be the plane, s larges, anti war broadside to date - one large sheet of newsprint that jus, kep, on unfolding A shotgun mar r läge of pamphleteer ¡ng and origami that managed to be both political and charming Our , b , p was sealed Ink was in our blood, not to mention several hundred Bubaytonics We dreamed dreams, vowed brotherhood and aimed for the top 'Wow, we said simultaneously "We could do a national Peace Paper One of us. I think w ick land, said. Yery far out We yvould be the new RollmgStone We would be the voice of the New Old Left Or maybe the Old New t eft Whatever We could empower the disenfranchised, rig h t injustice, free the chickens We could be somebody Then we could 9ell the gig to T ime W arnerand re tire Bu, the sleazeballs pulled ou, before we got our business plan together ( Yes, V irginia, ttiey can bomb the oldes, c ity on the plane,, strafe and rocke, the Oar den of Eden, and be home before the resistance hits the streets No, there won't be another Vietnam ) Through the disappointment and hear, break , i, was Reverend B illy s strength that held us together (okay, maybe a lew drugs, but nothing heavy ; Poking through the ashes of our Australian place names sound like notes cascading down a xylophone Waggn Wigga i place of many cruws). Ballar at, Bendigo,k uber Peady, k ur mgai. Nullarbor Jan Juc. Murrumbidgee, Nockatonga. Thargnmmdah. U b ir r . ,)ahiru. M tllm gim b i, k a lg o r lie andMaroubra The words infuse the p la rr, with a sperial force Aboriginal mystery from the arx ten! Dr earn time "Once a jo lly swagman camped by a billabong, under the >tk*l of acoohbah tree. And he sang as he watched and he waited wfule his b illy boiled Who II come a-waltzing M a tild i w ith me >" A B "Banjo" Paterson Ah, w o rd , b e a u tifu l w o r d IA R IH DAY A p ril 22 is Earth Day Everyone l>as at least fifty things you can do to save the earth on a list somewhere We suggest only two I ) Don, make more human bemgs There are so many, so many hungry, suffering children lei ustakecareof those alreoch here before we create new ones 2)C>on, buy any more fossil fuels The burning of fossil fuels 15 quite frank ly k illm g this plane, And you though, recycling was tough" • Okay , wan, it a It,tle easier 9 Do no, conceive a chi Id or buy gas on Apr il 22, and you w ill receive absolution from fhe Rastifitsd C,lurch of the Cowboy Buddah Which w ill las, ttl next year when I, w ill get tougher' Tax Day Here is an interesting little memo sent to us by a friend, Infer nal Revenue Service Department of the Treasury TOA1 L DISTRICT DIRECTORS dreams B illy s a id ,' Today, Cannon Beach Tomorrow the wor Id " 5o here we are, two years later Or is it three9 Memory goes fas, when you re into arts and letters And social responsibility Did I mention , ha,9 APRIL 4, ,9 8 5 On March 5 , 19 85 , a char ge of tax evasion was filed in the U S D istrict Court in Indianapolis. Indiana, by U $ Attorney Oeorge Duncan The charges were dismissed' The defense attorney Lowell Beer a,, of Huntsville. Alabama, presented ir refutable evidence, ha, the 16th Amendment to the U S Constitution was never proper ly ra tifie d The amendment which established the "income tax", was signed into low despite ser ious defects In re a lity only two States r atdied the amendment, ra tifica tion requires 36 states to be valid The effect of this is such the, every tax paid into the Treasury since 1913 is due and refundable to every citizen and business The o fficial position o, the service is. as i, has always been, to aid and assist the citizens of the United States We w ill not publish or advertise this finding as a total and immediate refund would cause a serious drain on the resources of the Treasury For those citizens who become aware of this finding and apply for a total refund, expedite their refund documents as quickly and as quietly as possible A simple 1040X form w ill suffice u ntil a new lorm is designed and printed Advise each of your managers tho, they are no, to discuss this situation w ith anyone There w ill be no w ritte n communications and you are to destroy this memorandum The Secretary of the Treasury assures me that there w ill be no reduction in the workforce as this refunding a ctivity w ill take a minimum of 5 years to complete Further directions w ill be forwarded as the need arises (signed) Roscoe L Egger , J r Commissioner of Internal Revenue TAX TALK Check this Tax Break American Indian Í Association of Portland 1827 NE 44th Suite 226 Portland, OR 97213 Wbvn you >cll your horn* the difT»rvnc» between the ■ttjueted eelee prwe and your coal baau la treated ae a capita, (a m and ae eulyert to ta i You maa be able to deter the tax for a tim e but it usually benunea due eventually H ow e.er anoa you reach &A. you may exclude V oro t a i up to tia i.lX M ) of (fain on a home eale You must have irwrwd and lived in Ihe house at least three a i the Cive year« before the sale Ytxi may use the electiun only once I f a m arried oou yir sells their botne and uaaa the exclusion neither one can tabs advantage at it again Keep that in mind if you sell your home because of a m arriage or divorce Chauee the right tune to use thia big tax break FTB. TV» h * w MlMi a Bruce E. Nims, PC. Certifltd Public Accoumani C oast R ange A s s o c ia t e d 329 (M