Strine

{{Short description|Australian accent}}

Strine, also spelled Stryne ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|r|aɪ|n}}), is Australian slang for a broad Australian English accent. Someone who speaks Strine is called an Ocker. In contemporary Australian spoken English, the term Strine is being replaced by Strayan, a word gaining traction in more recent years (although Strine is still used among some populations). In written English, Strine remains more frequently used.{{cite web |title=Google Books Ngram Viewer |url=https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=strine |website=Google Books |access-date=19 March 2024}}{{cite web |title=Google Ngram Viewer |url=https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Strayan&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 |access-date=19 March 2024 |website=Google Books}}

The term is a syncope, derived from a shortened phonetic rendition of the pronunciation of the word "Australian" in an exaggerated Broad Australian accent, drawing upon the tendency of this accent to run syllables together in a form of liaison.Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme, Thorndike Press, 2006 ({{ISBN|0-7862-8517-6}})

The term was coined in 1964The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press (1992), p. 990 ({{ISBN|0-19-214183-X}}) when the accent was the subject of humorous columns published in the Sydney Morning Herald from the mid-1960s. Alastair Ardoch Morrison, under the Strine pseudonym of Afferbeck Lauder (a metaplasm for "Alphabetical Order"), wrote a song "With Air Chew" ("Without You") in 1965 followed by a series of books—Let Stalk Strine (1965), Nose Tone Unturned (1967), Fraffly Well Spoken (1968), and Fraffly Suite (1969). An example from one of the books: "Eye-level arch play devoisters ..." ("I'll have a large plate of oysters").

In 2009, Text Publishing, Melbourne, re-published all four books in an omnibus edition.{{cite book|url=http://textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/strine/ |title=Strine |access-date=30 November 2009|date=October 2009 |publisher=Text Publishing Company|isbn=9781921656804 }}

The late environmentalist and TV presenter Steve Irwin was once referred to as the person who "talked Strine like no other contemporary personality".[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/09/04/1157222070806.html "Freakish end to a wild life"], The Age