US woman reveals ‘stupid’ Aussie slang mistake

The Texan who lives in Australia said she felt “stupid” after learning the real meaning behind the popular slang term.

A Texan woman living in Australia said she felt “stupid” after learning the real meaning behind a popular slang term.

Tara has lived in Australia for four years. She thought the entire time women were calling each other “doll”.

“I just found out it’s ‘darl’ — but it sounds like ‘doll’,” she said on TikTok.

Darl is typically short for darling. It’s a phrase the woman has labelled “so cute”.

“I swear, I loved it when woman would call me this. But this entire time, I thought they were saying doll,” she said.

Tara added she felt “so stupid” as a result. Tara said she discovered her mistake when making a post about how much she loved the phrase.

A woman has been left stunned over an Aussie slang term. Picture: TikTok/@texaninaustralia

She decided to Google terms of endearment and realised where she had gone wrong.

Tara told news.com.au it was like a “lightbulb moment” when she figured it out.

“I was like “wait a minute”, and then immediately ran to my Australian husband to verify,” she said.

“I can’t think of anything else specifically that I’ve gotten wrong, but my husband and I have been together five years. There are still instances where I ask him to repeat himself because of the accent or words I’m not used to.”

Social media users weighed in on the woman’s revelation.

“R doesn’t exist in Australia,” one person commented.

Another added: “You could probably just say doll and we’d think you’re saying darl.”

“OMG!!! I am a Texan living in Australia two years now and I thought the same thing,” one shared.

Another said, “Some say doll some say darl. Especially in northern states you’ll hear darl as Dahl – those vowels get flattened and it can be similar to Bostonians saying cah instead of car.”

“Told my American friend I worked at Crazy Clark’s. He spent hours looking for a clock shop,” one joked.

One social media user commented: “Just found Americans were calling me DOLL!!! I thought they were calling me DARL.”

“That’s cute as hell! If it’s a tiny human I’ll call her doll but the big humans get Darl … mostly in the sense of ‘oh you’re a darl’. Us Aussies love to shorten everything,” another said.

She had been misunderstanding the phrase for four years. Picture: TikTok/@texaninaustralia

UK woman, Gerogia Davies, found a common phrase with a very different meaning between her home country and Australia. Ms Davies has lived in Melbourne for five years.

The content creator, who regularly dives into the cultural differences between the two countries, claimed there’s a common phrase that could incite violence in Australia, whereas in the UK it simply means “hello”.

“So as a form of greeting in the UK, it’s normal to say, ‘you alright’ or even just ‘alright’ for short,” she said on TikTok.

“You’re not actually asking them if they are alright. It’s just another way of acknowledging someone.

“But in Australia, asking ‘you alright?’ is apparently seen as some sort of threat or starting a fight.”