Monday 11 February 2013

Sydney Vernacular

I've been dealing with Sydney people lately. Sydney is different. Well, anywhere is different, when you live in Canberra. But there is a ridiculous kind of swagger adopted by a certain kind of young wheeler dealer in Sydney (estate agents particularly). One of the annoying little traits I've noticed as I've listened to them and communicated with them over the internet is the new habit of saying not, 'Send me an email', but 'Shoot me an email'. Why? Does it sound more exciting? Did they pick it up from some hipster movie? I know it doesn't matter; it's just that it jars.

2 comments:

  1. It's very annoying and rather unprofessional. I complained to Boden once, pointing out that I wasn't a friend of 'Johnnie' and therefore found his over-familiar emails a bit creepy.

    I presume the 'shoot me an email' approach is meant to show that they're '24/7' 'lunch is for wimps' types who don't waste their customers' time with things like thinking and reflecting. Fry and Laurie did a rather nice parody of this, dressed as Anglican clergymen: http://youtu.be/QEZjJ_4A_MU I think it's 30 seconds into the clip.

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    1. Once, in London, I got a letter from Boden in which he described in some detail how he was sitting at his desk, picking his nose and eating it while he waited for my reply to his amazing offer. It was very creepy (but surely I can't really have received such a thing, no marketing man could imagine picking the boss's nose was a good ploy, could they? Surely not. Does that mean that the hugely expensive brick solid stoneground wholemeal rye sourdough artisanal country ficelles I used to get from the Farmers' Market in Pimlico gave me ergot poisoning and I imagined the whole thing?)

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