Transcript of AE 1033 - Expression: Like A Shag On A Rock

G'day, you mob, and welcome to Aussie English. I am your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken down under. So, whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So, sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go.

G'day, you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I hope you have grabbed a cuppa, a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, and you are sitting down and ready to hang out today, ready to spend some time chilling out with me and hopefully levelling up your Australian English. So, welcome to this episode, guys, this is another expression episode where I am going to teach you an expression that's used commonly in English.

This is a rather Australian expression, "like a shag on a rock", so we're going to get into that shortly. But before we do, guys, don't forget if you want all of the written transcripts for these episodes so that you can listen and read, this is the most effective way of learning any language.

Then make sure that you check out the Premium Podcast membership at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, and you can also go to my website and check out the other courses that I offer for things like mastering Phrasal verbs in English, the Australian pronunciation course to help you master your Australian accent.

I've got a spoken English course that focuses on common reductions and contractions in spoken English, and the real English discussions course, which is focussed on levelling up your listening comprehension of the Australian accent rapidly. So, without any further ado, guys, let's get into it. What have I been up to this week? It has been a pretty tiring week, I mean, they all are. I've just been whingeing recently. Haven't I, guys.

I've just been constantly complaining. But yeah, definitely looking forward to the end of lockdown. I've had my second AstraZeneca shot. Everything's smooth sailing. I had zero side effects after that second shot. So, once again, if you're thinking about getting vaccinated, just go do it, get any vaccine that you can get your hands on, you know, the benefits far, far, far outweigh the negatives.

You know, I know some people who have already died from COVID, and it is just awful, guys. So, if you can get vaccinated, please go and do it for yourself, your family, for your loved ones and for your community. But obviously, go check with your health professional first, just in case.

So, yeah, got double jabbed. Been up to that. Hanging out with the kids. Just juggling life, man. Just juggling life at the moment, trying to organise the mayhem that is having two small children under the same roof.

I'm sure a lot of you guys are in the same boat. I'm sure that a lot of you will understand where I'm coming from and what it's like. "Weathering the storm". There's another expression for you. At the moment I am just "weathering the storm". I'm hunkering down and I'm trying to make sure that I'll survive all of this chaos that's going on with two small children. Yeah. Anyway.

So, as you guys will be aware from the last two episodes at the start, here I do a little Q and A. And today's question comes from a gentleman called Henry. Thank you for your question, Henry. And he says, how do you use the word "ta"? How do you use "ta" in Australian English? So, good question. Thank you very much, Henry. This is a really cool kind of informal way of just saying thank you, so you can say, "ta".

You'll often hear this when, I guess working with people and someone asks you to get something for them or do something for them and you say, you know, here's the coffee you wanted, or here's the document you needed. The person receiving that thing can just say, Oh "ta", right. So, you could say thanks. You could say cheers. You can also say "ta". "Ta". And it's the long R sound.

So, instead of /tɐ/ make sure that it is that long vowel sound R, right. So, an example would be instead of "cup". Right. "Cup" is the short /ɐ/ vowel sound. "Carp", which I don't have here, the type of fish, the invasive species of- It's like a goldfish on steroids. "Carp" is the long R vowel sound; you'll learn about this in the Australian pronunciation course. Remember, go check that out. But "cup, carp".

So, instead of /tɐ/, you have to say /tɑː/, just hold it a little longer. "Ta". So, good on you, mate. Thanks. Cheers. "Ta". You could use this too when just going out and buying things from a cafe, from a shop, at the supermarket, those kinds of sort of short, quick interactions where you want to say thanks, you can just say "ta".

So, I hope that helps, Henry. Let me know how you go, get out there and use it. It may be a little strange if you use this on people from elsewhere in the world that aren't Australian, they may be like, huh? But I think they'll get the context. You mean, thanks.

So, as usual, let's get into this week's news story. So, pied cormorant poo has been wreaking havoc for Yorke Peninsula businesses this week. When guests arrive at the Stansbury Holiday Motel in South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, they will be greeted by a sign warning them not to park under the pine trees.

Recently, unsuspecting motorists have been parking their cars in the alluring shady spots beneath the protective branches of these trees, only to return later to find their vehicles beneath an excess amount of cormorant doo-doo. At sunset, the birds return from a busy day out fishing at sea and roost in the rather large Norfolk Island pine trees above any parked cars.

Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of the black and white cormorants set up shop in the trees for the night and then make it rain faeces as they settle in for the night. Motel manager Tracy Millard told of a story of a Sydney man who parked his rental four-wheel drive car under the tree before having a dinner at the pub, followed by a stroll down the jetty.

Lucky it was a rental car, huh. Quote "when he got back to his hired four-wheel drive, he had runs of shit from the top of his car to the bottom, and that is not a word of a lie." End quote. Besides cars, rooves and footpaths being destroyed by shag art, shag being the cormorant, so alternative word for a cormorant, a shag. Businesses are also getting covered in the bird excrement when there are strong winds.

Pub owner Rob Rankin says Quote "when there's a sea breeze, the poo flies all over our pub and it's like our pub has been painted in shag poo. On occasion, customers when they've been exiting the hotel, have been hit by the flying poo." End quote.

So, next time you travel to the Yorke Peninsula, avoid the pine trees or you're in for a shit day. All right, guys. So, I hope you enjoyed that story. Yeah. Cormorants are these black and white birds that fish in the ocean, they come back and settle in in trees at night, and they're also known as shags, and you'll see how this relates to the expression shortly. So, before we get into that, guys, let's get into the Aussie joke.

So, smack that kookaburra on the buttocks. So, here's the joke. All right, are you ready for it? What did the elephant ask the naked man? What did the elephant ask the naked man? You're going to hate me for this. How do you breathe out of that thing? How do you breathe out of that thing? So, elephants obviously have trunks, and I think you'll work the rest out from that. Let's get into the expression.

All right. So, the expression today is to be "like a shag on a rock, like a shag on a rock". So, let's go through the words. We'll then go through the definition of the expression, the origin, some examples, a pronunciation exercise and then a little listening comprehension exercise at the end. So, "like" this is similar to something. Something's "like" something else. It's similar to that thing.

So, I am "like" my dad in that we both have beards. He doesn't have hair- Oh, I don't have hair on my head. He has quite a lot of hair, so we are unlike each other that way. But we are "like" each other in that we both have beards. A "shag". This is a type of bird, a cormorant, right. These are also known as "shags". I typically call them cormorants.

But yeah, more recently, in recent years, after taking out bird photography, I discovered, what?! They're actually called "shags". This is confusing for many an Australian because a "shag" is the act of having sex in Australian slang, and this is much more commonly used the word "shag" in this sense than it is in the sense of a cormorant. People tend to talk about sex a lot more often than they will cormorants.

I think that's a given, right. So, yeah, you'll hear this in phrases like, I mean, again, it's informal. It's kind of the sort of thing you would talk about behind closed doors with friends, obviously, you know, and probably guys more than women.

I can't imagine that many women just going around chatting to their girlfriends being like, yeah, had a great "shag" the other day. I mean, you could, but it's probably less common with women than it is with men. But yeah, a "shag" is the act of having sex.

"On". If you're "on" something, you're physically in contact with something and supported by that thing. You are "on" that thing. A "rock". I'm sure you're going to know what a "rock" is, right. A pebble, a "rock", a stone. This is the solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the Earth and other similar planets exposed on the surface or underlying soil. So, those large, chunky bits of the Earth, a "rock".

So, the definition of "like a shag on a rock", and again "shag" referring to the bird, not referring to the act of having sex, though for so long, I thought that's what it meant, and I'll tell you about that in a sec. But the expression "like a shag on a rock" is to be in an isolated or exposed position. To be isolated, lonely, stranded or abandoned. You are "like a shag on a rock".

You're like a cormorant sitting out on a rock that's often at the edge of the ocean or even in the ocean, right. If they're- These cormorants sit on these rocks, usually basking in the sun, recuperating after they've been hunting.

But quite often they are exposed, they are isolated, they're stranded out there, they're figuratively lonely and abandoned. I mean, who knows what goes on in the mind of a shag, but maybe they're fine. Maybe they're loners and they don't want to hang out with anyone.

But yeah, that's the idea. Like a bird isolated out to sea on a rock, to be "like a shag on a rock" is to be in an isolated or exposed position. For so long, I thought that "like a shag on a rock" was meaning something like really, really uncomfortable, like trying to have sex on a rock or imagine you were camping, and you were having sex in a sleeping bag with your partner and there's a rock under the sleeping bag.

I always thought when growing up, when someone said, oh yeah, it's "like a shag on a rock", or he felt "like a shag on a rock", or it stood out "like a shag on a rock". I always thought it was, you know, uncomfortable, awkward, strange, but doesn't mean that, it means isolated. And you'll often hear this in the expression "to stand out like a shag on a rock", meaning to be very obvious or noticeable.

So, I think- I mean, I think we've covered the origin. I've already gone over it, right. It is the idea of a cormorant sitting on a rock all by itself being isolated, and it's a very Australian term. So, let's go through some examples of how you could use this expression "like a shag on a rock".

So, imagine number one here, that you are single, you're on the dating scene whilst living in Sydney, right. So, you download apps like Tinder or Bumble, and you start swiping right in the hopes of meeting someone interesting that you could go out on a date with and hopefully hit it off.

So, you get a couple of matches and maybe you get on like a house on fire with one of these people and you guys organise a coffee, right, a coffee date, you organise catching up at a café. So, you're meant to be having this date, you go to the café and you're waiting out there for ages and the person's a no show, right. So, they don't show up. They never arrive. They never come to the date.

Because they've disappeared, they bailed, they've become a no show, they never came. You feel like an idiot because you were stranded, you were isolated, you were exposed, abandoned, you were all by yourself. You felt "like a shag on a rock". Right.

And maybe if you're standing in front of this cafe and you are wearing fluoro coloured clothing or something, you're really obvious to the world. You could also say, you know, if someone was walking past, man, that guy looks "like a shag on a rock". He's standing out "like a shag on a rock". I hope he hasn't been left there by his date, "like a shag on a rock".

Number two, imagine you're an adventurer who loves to go camping, bushwalking, surfing, rock climbing, you know, pretty much anything under the sun to do with the great outdoors down under in Australia. So, you head down one day to the Yorke Peninsula in Australia, making sure not to park under any Norfolk Island Pines, and you head down to the beach to go for a bit of a surf.

So, you get down there and you realise that the conditions are pretty awful, but you still want to go for a dip anyway, right. You still want to get wet, you still want to catch a few waves, even though the ocean is like a washing machine. So, you put on your wettie, your wetsuit, you get your surfboard out and you swim out to catch some waves.

As you go out you realise that there are literally zero people on the beach. As a result, you feel isolated, you feel alone, you feel "like a shag on a rock". You're all alone. There's no one else there. You're isolated. You feel "like a shag on a rock".

Example number three, imagine you're a tradie, right, A tradesman or a tradeswoman working on a new house that's being built. Maybe you're a chippy, right, a carpenter who is helping set up the house frames. So, you get to work, and you're meant to have this apprentice come along with you to help you every single day at work. But he never rocks up, right. He never comes to work. He never appears. He never rocks up.

So, you try calling him and you get no answer. So, you have to smash out all this work by yourself. You've got to do it all by yourself, all the hard yakka, it's your responsibility to get it done by the end of the day on your lonesome. All by yourself.

Your little mate, old mate here, the apprentice shows up the next day after the work's done and is like, oh, how are you going? And you're like, mate! What the hell? You left me stranded "like a shag on a rock". Yesterday you were a no show. You didn't come to work. You didn't- I couldn't get onto you. I tried calling you. Where the hell were you? Where the bloody hell were you? You left me "like a shag on a rock".

So, there you go, guys. That is the expression "a shag on a rock", right. "Like a shag on a rock. To stand out like a shag on a rock". This is generally to be isolated or exposed, could be lonely, stranded, abandoned, and it can also be used in the sense of "to stand out like a shag on a rock", to be very obvious.

So, let's go through a pronunciation exercise, guys, where you can work on your speaking skills. Listen and repeat after me. Focus on my pronunciation, connected speech, intonation, everything like that. You ready? Let's go.

"Like. Like a. Like a shag. Like a shag on. Like a shag on a. Like a shag on a rock. Like a shag on a rock. Like a shag on a rock. Like a shag on a rock. Like a shag on a rock. Like a shag on a rock. I felt like a shag on a rock. You felt like a shag on a rock. He felt like a shag on a rock. She felt like a shag on a rock. We felt like a shag on a rock. They felt like a shag on a rock. It felt like a shag on a rock."

Good work, guys, and there's quite a few interesting things happening here. I want you to focus on, in this case, the fact that a lot of the words in the expression "like a shag on a rock", a lot of these words end with a consonant sound and are followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound. So, "like" ends with a K sound, followed by "a shag" ends with a G sound, followed by "on" ends with an N sound, followed by "a".

In each of these examples when you say this phrase, the consonant at the ends of these syllables "like, shag and on" start the next syllable. So, they sort of move to the next word. So, you'll hear "like a shag on a rock, like a shag on a rock", as opposed to "like a shag on a rock".

So, this is something to focus on with the fluidity of your English, with the connected speech. When words start with vowels inside of sentences, or they are just vowels, like in the case of the word "A" and the word before them, it ends with a consonant sound, the consonant will go to the front of the syllable. Okay, that consonant at the end of the previous syllable moves forward, "like a shag on a rock, like a shag on a rock."

Anyway, before we finish up, guys, I have a line here from the movie Oddball. Now oddball is a great film that was filmed, I think, in the last ten years down at Warrnambool in Victoria. So, this is a seaside town along the coast near the Great Ocean Road, it's passed where the Great Ocean Road ends. And the movie is about the small island off of the coast of Warrnambool that is called, I think, Middle Island.

And there are penguins, fairy penguins or little penguins that live on this island. And the problem is that these foxes are getting onto the island and killing these penguins, and they have to find a way to avoid this happening, right. So, it's a pretty cool movie. Go check it out. Kids will love this movie. It's called oddball. Okay. "Oddball", meaning a strange personal thing. He's a bit of an oddball.

He's a bit of a strange one, bit of an oddball. So, I'm going to play this for you twice. Remember what your goal is, is to get some paper, get a pen, try and write down what you hear. Slow it down if you're using my premium podcast player or the podcast app that I have, listen multiple times, and yeah, just focus on the way that you can hear these words being said.

How are they connected to one another? Where are they being emphasised? Everything like that, use this as a listening comprehension exercise. All right, you ready for number one? Let's go.

I've got to figure out a way on getting that stick out of your hand.

Good work. Good work. All right. So, no spiel in between these two. Let's just get straight into number two. Okay, you ready? Go.

I've got to figure out a way on getting that stick out of your hand.

All right. Good job, guys. Don't forget if you want to see the answer to this little puzzle, download the free transcript for today's episode or just check out the transcript if you are a premium podcast member. You can become a premium podcast member remember at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, and it'll be written there for you to be able to check your listening comprehension skills.

I'm Pete, thanks for joining me and I will see you next time.