XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Tue, 17 Sep 2024 08:44:27 +0200, Silvano   
    wrote:   
      
   >Peter Moylan hat am 17.09.2024 um 01:32 geschrieben:   
      
   >> That reminds me of an incident in an earlier job of hers, when she   
   >> worked in a psychiatric hospital. A small town north of Newcastle had   
   >> had no doctor for a long time, but Australia has a policy of getting   
   >> immigrant doctors out to rural areas, so they finally got someone. That   
   >> doctor sent one of his patients down to the psych hospital for   
   >> assessment. The clinical notes said that he was obsessed with attacking   
   >> birds.   
   >>   
   >> When interviewed, one of the first things he said was   
   >> "Stone the crows, I don't know why they sent me here."   
   >   
   >   
   >I assume that "stone the crows" is a common idiom in that part of Australia.   
   >1) What does it mean?   
   >2) Do native speakers of other varieties of English know and use that idiom?   
      
   Known to me in South Africa, but I thought it was of Cockney origin   
   (and when I first went to the UK I thought the place was full of   
   Australians talking Strine).   
      
   >By the way, congratulations to Australia. Here in Germany we are very   
   >slowly starting to understand that interpreters should be provided to   
   >patients and hospital cleaners or the patient's minor children are   
   >definitely not the best solution, especially when talking e.g. about   
   >sexual diseases or a life-threatening cancer.   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa   
   Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com   
   E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)