TRACEY BENDINGER | Local News | Contact
“It’s Sunday today” noted Steve, a normal Australian citizen.
“True” replied Canberra resident, Todd Greggory.
While this may seem like a rather innocuous exchange between Steve and Todd, it’s Todd’s unnecessary reply that’s garnered some attention.
Todd is from Canberra and in Canberra the word ‘true’ has managed to cement itself into their local lexicon.
The Advocate understands that conversations like this happen at least 100 times a minute, with some of Betoota’s very own citizens being exposed to it.
“One time a Canberra person asked me how my day was, I said it was good, and they replied ‘true, nice one’, I can’t figure out why they needed to confirm that what I said was a fact.” Noted one confused Betootanese woman.
“A similar thing happened to me, except I said I was in town for my grandma’s funeral, someone just said ‘true’ and walked away from me. I’m still trying to process it” another local remembered.
“Canberra people are weird” he finished with a shiver.
The Advocate reached out to Betoota’s top linguist, Dr. Shirly Frawley, to see whether there is any scientific reason behind Canberrans including this adjective in their idiolect.
“It’s fascinating isn’t it, it’s had myself and other linguists stumped for over 20 years”
“Is there any scientific or evolutionary reason for it to be included? No, definitely not.”
It’s understood that the government is allocating another $7 million to Dr. Frawley’s investigation into Canberrans use of ‘true’, however the linguist doesn’t think we’ll have any results any time soon.
More to come.
