I was asking an AI for suggestions for how to refer to the impending sovereignty threat that is the dying empire of American plutocracy.
Yank and Yankee feel completely gutless to me but Seppos stuck out as both crude (referring to septic tank which rhymes with yank) and appropriate (being full of excrement). The origin is supposedly Australian.
I’m mostly just checking it doesn’t have a racial element or some other dark history that Deepseek didn’t mention.
Definitely used in Australia for decades. It is the third iteration rhyming slang yank->septic tank->seppo.
Yes, it does actually get used, and yes, it has the connotations that your search turned up.
It’s honestly only a mildly derogatory term, to be honest, despite its literal meaning. Plenty of Aussies will use it with no ill intent.
I thought it meant separatist. Something to do with the civil war or whatever.
I agree that it’s only mildly derogatory, a playful jest rather than an expression of distaste.
When we have a cruise ship arrive in the harbor someone will say the seppos are in town or whatever.
You’re thinking of yankee. In America, yankee has connotations relating to the Union (the opposite of the Confederate separatists!) in the Civil War. (It’s actually even older, probably deriving from Dutch settlers around what is now New York, but today’s Americans will understand it in terms of the Civil War.)
Outside America, yankee just means American.
Seppo is Australian rhyming slang meaning American, building on this definition of yankee. Yank -> tank -> septic tank -> septic -> seppo.
Plenty of Aussies will use it with no ill intent
We’re pretty famous for using strong language with no ill intent.
It’s used as a general term, and also an individual term, e.g., “Seppo Dave”.
Do people say it?
I’ve only said and seen it online, but it’s definitely in our vocabulary. Similar to some other slang like ‘crikey’ and ‘strewth’, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a regional or generational factor.
The origin is supposedly Australian.
I’m not an expert, Wikipedia might have the answer, but like Greyghoster said it’s rhyming slang, which is usually associated with Cockney culture in Britain, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it started there first.
I’m mostly just checking it doesn’t have a racial element or some other dark history that Deepseek didn’t mention.
No, in fact historical anti-American sentiment had an element of anti-racism at times. Now, Australia has an atrocious history of oppressing indigenous people (some towns even had segregation in living memory[1]) but there have been anti-American riots in the UK, Australia and New Zealand during WWII partially caused by US military segregation: see Battle of Brisbane.
I was asking an AI for suggestions for how to refer to the impending sovereignty threat that is the dying empire of American plutocracy.
I know some corners of the internet have been calling it the Burgerreich since at least BLM. ‘Burger’ has been used online a lot as a term for USA citizens, although I’m not sure if that was a reaction to the Islamophobic (etc.) slur ‘kebab’ which became popular online almost 20 years ago.
I’ve never heard it outside of reddit.
