Maybe the Dingo Ate Your Terminology: Australians Angered by the Term 'Truck'

Every country has its linguistic eccentricities. The Brits continue to call transport trucks “lorries” (and then there’s all that “boot” and “bonnet” stuff), while other locales adopt their own unique terminology for the same object or thing.

The first-generation Buick LaCrosse was sold as the Allure in Canada because “lacrosse” is Quebecois slang for something to which an entire Seinfeld episode is dedicated.

Australia is no different, but many people Down Under aren’t happy with a new term that is creeping into the country’s vernacular: “truck.”

According to the Aussie publication CarAdvice, the imminent demise of the country’s beloved “utes” — car-based pickups similar to the long-departed Chevrolet El Camino — is breeding a backlash to the proper terminology for their conventional replacements.

The land of dingoes and shrimp on the barbie spawned the car-based utility back in the 1930s, and they enjoyed a long run, even after the segment died out in North America. Last month, the Ford Falcon Ute ended a 55-year production run, and the Holden Ute’s looming death will seal the coffin.

Replacing them will be newfangled “pickup trucks,” such as the Ford Ranger and Holden Colorado (Chevrolet Colorado in the U.S.).

Rob Margeit, editorial production manager of CarAdvice, explains the reaction: “And this has, if you believe the multitude of social media channels that drive so much of today’s discourse, gotten up the collective noses like flies in a desert of a horde of patriotic and jingoistic Aussie car buyers.”

Of course, patriotism has clouded the conversation. Australia — where water swirls the opposite direction as it leaves the toilet bowl — already has a bevy of smaller pickups from the likes of Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Izuzu.

Unlike the utes, these conventional vehicles have a cab and a utility bed, and are very clearly “pickups.” Utes were always a passenger car with the rear seating removed (and replaced with a bed). The two aren’t interchangeable, and “pickup” is the proper term, the publication writes.

“So it seems this latest disquiet is not so much about the loss of an Aussie icon itself, but rather the slipping from the lexicon of that most Australian of words, ute, in favour of yet another Americanism,” Margeit writes. His advice? Stop worrying, bogans.

Our advice is the same, only it also involves a case of Fosters and a ride on a kangaroo.

[Image: Ford Australia]