Aussie and Australian are two words that are confused as words that convey one and the same sense. In fact there is some difference between the two words. The word ‘Australian’ is used in the formal sense where as the word ‘Aussie’ is used in the informal sense. This is the main difference between the two words ‘Aussie’ and ‘Australian’.
The word ‘Aussie’ is more colloquial in use when compared to the word ‘Australian’. It is not also impolite to address the word ‘Aussie’. It is just a colloquial way of substituting the word ‘Australian’. Observe the two sentences
1. Jeff Thomson is a great Aussie paceman.
2. The Aussies were all out for 413.
In both the sentences connected with the game of cricket, you can see that the word ‘Aussie’ is used in an informal sense and in a colloquial sense.
On the other hand the word ‘Australian’ is used in a formal sense as in the sentences
1. Jeff Thomson is a great Australian paceman.
2. The Australians were all out for 413.
In both the sentences connected with the game of cricket, you can see that the word ‘Australian’ is used in a formal sense and also in the more popular sense.
It is important to know that both the words, namely, Aussie and Australian are generally used as adjectives and they have a single noun form in the word ‘Australia’. Sometimes the word ‘Aussie’ is used as a noun too to refer to the people of Australia as in the expression ‘the Aussie’. In the sentence ‘he admires the Aussie way of life’, the word ‘Aussie’ is used as an attribute to the noun ‘way’. The word ‘Aussie’ is becoming popular these days. These are the differences between the two words, Aussie and Australian.