In a bid to become fair dinkum, Microsoft has given Aussies a go too and included national colloquialisms in the Office 2007 Australian dictionary.
When the company conducted an online poll offering Australians a chance to put their 2 cents into which Aussie words should make the top 20 inclusion list, more than 24,000 responded, highlighting g'day, sickie, ute and trackies as the most popular.
Microsoft Australia information group director Tony Wilkinson said the company thought it would be a bonzer idea if it worked in conjuction with a panel of language experts to create the nominated word list.
"We knew that some quintessential Aussie vernacular was missing, so in order to make our next software release more user-friendly for Australians, we thought it would be a great idea to have our most popular Aussie words included in the 2007 Microsoft Office system," Wilkinson said. "We saw the release of the Office system as the ideal opportunity to make sure the Aussie classics weren't forgotten and new Aussie words were added."
David Blair, Macquarie Dictionary editorial committee founding member and language panel participant, said the company put in a top effort and proved to the locals it was dinky-di about preserving Australia's refined linguistic culture.
"Australia has a unique cultural background and as a result, there are a number of Australianisms in our language," Blair said. "It's really exciting to see Microsoft recognize Australian culture in the upcoming version of Office."
The phrase g'day was the most popular at 2,868 votes, with bogan, sheila, wuss, cockie and Bradman also making the list.