Urgently Needing Roots

For any Australian this sort of thing is both unfortunately and funny. In the Australian vernacular "root" has a meaning directly analogous to "screw" in the American vernacular. So the plumbing section of the yellow pages takes on a whole new dimension if you know your way around Aussie slang. Gems such as Mr. Rooter, Super Rooter and the above depicted Urgent Rooter just leap of the page and swim around inside the reader's imagination. Rooter Bong on the other hand just defies explanation.

Bruce Beresford's 1981 film, Puberty Blues, does a great job of putting the word in context. Scoot forward to 1:30 and take in the root reference, particularly relative to the mention of the panel van (and that's a whole different discussion).



And while we're at it, any Aussie can't look past this...


To help those a bit in the dark understand the humour, "coit" is an Australian slang term for one's anus.