Oi Oi Oi

by Ian Nance

The enthusiastic chant, "Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi", is heard everywhere that some display of national fulfillment is needed – at sporting events or other large gatherings of all kinds where a form of group joy is warranted.

An interesting variant of the call is when "Aussie Aussie Aussie" is called out by a cheer leader or part of the crowd, and others at the gathering respond heartily with "Oi Oi Oi".

Yet its origin isn't Australian. It derives from a chant which grew at Cornish rugby union and football games in the 1960s where the call was "Oggy Oggy Oggy – Oi Oi Oi" It is said that one popular variation was the "Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie" chant by Chelsea fans in homage to their star striker, Peter Osgood. That made it natural for this country adapt the spelling of the words of the chant to "Aussie -Aussie- Aussie". It was heard at Australian sporting events as early as 1987, and gained wide popularity by the time of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

So the evolvement of the chant in this country is an example of multi culturalism at work – we adopt the style of another nation, then apply it to our own.

But there is one form of emulation which I find fairly annoying – the habit of Americanising the pronunciation of words and phrases in popular songs. I bridled recently when I heard a song on the radio and the vocalist sang "Ah see your lerv in the skahs......"

And it wasn't because the singer was a Yank. Oh no!

In fact he is a local, but had fallen for the infatuation of trying to sing like an American vocalist.

Imagine how you would react if you heard well-loved melodies rendered in 'Yankee' – perhaps that of one of our renowned singers, Olivia Newton John. Although she was born in England and brought to Australia when she was six, Olivia is accepted as a leading Australian performer.

Just let your mind imagine her singing "Ah lerv yiu – ah honestly lerv yiu"! Or perhaps you might accept hearing an Asian girl singer delivering the memorable words of one song of Gus Hahn's Broadway play "Whoopee" - "Ruv me or reeve me and ret me be ronerey..."

Now I'm not decrying many local polished performers who sometimes slip into little bursts of Americana, but I do denounce those who are struggling to "make it" in show business, and who believe that the pseudo-American accent is mandatory. It's not – it just shows up a possible rejection of pride in Australian culture.

In saying that, I stress that many songs enjoyed in Australia originate overseas where the width of musical creation and expression exists in much larger populations than our own. After all, we draw our identity from many different places in the world.

The current usage of the song "We Are Australian" by the ABC as part of its generic promotion stresses this part of our national identity, so it is natural and acceptable when rendering the musical and dramatic performances of other nations to use their distinct styles of pronunciation.

An example could be where a local artist singing 'Fiddler On The Roof's "If I Was A Rich Man" would do it with what he perceived as a Jewish accent. But it would not be essential to do so – the thoughts and meaning behind the lyrics would carry through regardless of intonation.

This is not to say that our speech does not vary in style or pronunciation – it does, ranging from the annoyingly lazy nasal, to the toffee-sounding speech attempt at cultural superiority.

This is one of the reasons for the success of the media's professional voice artists who have both the understanding and knowledge to be able to give the scripted words of informational or advertising messages the right style and delivery.

I dismay particularly when I hear enthusiastic Aboriginal performers rendering in English what are their own cultural songs with an American accent, not realising that they are pointing out unwittingly to us listeners that for them, form is the norm.

They copy what they believe to be the right expression for the enunciation of a song, as though they could portray their melody genuinely in 'language' with these American-style inflections. For those sonic strugglers - go back to Wirrawanka!

I have no argument with the proposition that English is a growing, changing language. For me that is a joyous premise, because our tongue is one which grew out of a large number of existing languages in its formative days – from Latin, German, French, Scandinavian, Indian, Arabic and many localised variants such as the span of Celtic and Gaelic tongues, and is still developing as new words find their way into our dialect..

But this should not mean that singers who are trying to ape the stylists should not know the true, the real, the fair dinkum way that words and phrases relate to how we Australians hear and accept their message.

There is also the other problem of new arrivals in our country struggling to learn or adopt English as a second language.

Like many languages, the way a word is sounded can affect its meaning. As an example, if you hear the word "bough" do you understand it to mean the branch of a tree or a curtsy? Similarly, consider the confusion for English learners in hearing the word "hot' pronounced as Americanised "hart".

I know I'd rather hear John Williamson singing "True Blue" in his unaffected, skilled Australian manner, than have some jumped up would-be-if-he-could-be render it stateside as:

True Blue, uz et me and yiu
Is it Mom and Daide, is it a cork ah tew....
Is it standin' by your mart when she's in a faght
Or just Vegemart....

This is not to advocate that all Australian vocalists should try to sound like Chad Morgan as he sings "Sheik of Scrubby Creek". Rather, they should resist the urge to conform to the utterance style of American regions in the mistaken belief that it encourages higher local acceptability.

Therefore, stone the flamin' crows, cobbers; be proud of your natural, traditional accent and intonation. Stick with it.

Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi!