[Infowarrior] - Fair dinkum! Aussie lingo sparks security scare

[Richard Forno]

(The conspiracy-theorist in me wonders now, post-911, if you're detained
erroneously and then release with deepest apologies for the inconvenience,
if your name isn't kept on-file somewhere in some "event" database by the
homeland security apparatus......can't help but wonder about this........rf)


Fair dinkum! Aussie lingo sparks security scare
Jano Gibson
August 10, 2007 - 3:10PM

http://www.theage.com.au/news/travel/fair-dinkum-lingo-sparks-us-scare/2007/
08/10/1186530597194.html

Strewth. Crikey. Bloody hell. An Australian woman has reportedly sparked a
security scare aboard a US flight after her use of a common Australian
phrase was apparently misinterpreted as an act of aggression.

Sophie Reynolds, 41, from Queanbeyan, was flying aboard SkyWest Airlines
from Atlanta to Pittsburgh this week when she asked a flight attendant if
she could have a pack of pretzels instead of crackers.

"[The flight attendant] said they didn't have any [pretzels], and I said,
'Fair dinkum,' out of frustration," Reynolds was quoted as saying in the The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Before she knew it a second flight attendant asked her for her passport and
copied down her name.

Then, when the flight landed, three uniformed officers greeted her.

"They said, 'You swore at the hostess and there are federal rules against
that,"' Reynolds said. "And I said, 'I did not swear at the hostess, I just
said 'fair dinkum."'

A spokeswoman for the airline said it was not simply a matter of
misunderstanding the language.

"We witnessed aggressive behaviour throughout the flight," she said.

Reynolds was not charged and allowed to go on her way, she said.