If you’re Australian and using MS Word or other MS Office products, you’ll soon get fewer words marked as spelling errors. After a recent online word-survey with over 24,000 voters, Microsoft Office 2007 will include more Australianisms like sickie and trackies (“sick day” and “track suit”).
It’s nice to see Microsoft trying to make its products less America-centric. It’s silly to have an “English (Australian)” version that doesn’t recognize (or recognise) common words for that language variety.
The Australian expression chuck a sickie is certainly shorter than “play hooky from work by calling in sick” or “take a sick day when you’re not sick.” Does it have a shorter form in Australia because it’s a much more common practice there? (I kid.)
I remember watching a TV show in Japan and hearing the word 仮病 kebyou. My Japanese-English dictionary said “sham illness.” I thought, it’s so common that you have a word for this? I don’t think “sham illness” gets tossed around too much by us English speakers. We’d more likely say “he’s pretending to be sick” or “she’s feigning illness.”
See also: Australian Slang Dictionary
[...] Coming soon, from the people who brought you sickie (“sick day”; see my November post: MS Office embraces Australianisms): [...]