Naur

About

Naur is a joking way of spelling the word "no" as it's pronounced with an Australian accent. In the summer of 2021, Twitter users began to make jokes imagining pop culture references and situations that would be made more humorous by adding an Australian "naur."

Origin

The word "naur" appeared online as a means of typing "no" or "now" with an Australian or English accent for much of the internet's history, to the amusement of those without the accent. On February 1st, 2021, Twitter user @saralugor^[3] tweeted, "every time i see someone spell “no” as “naur” it cracks me up" (shown below).

Jokes about the pronunciation began picking up in the spring of 2021. On March 7th, 2021, YouTuber skskskz posted a video of K-pop idols Bang Chan & Changbin joking about Chan, an Australian, pronouncing "no" like "naur."

This led to jokes about the Australian pronunciation of "No" picking up among K-pop fans, and on April 27th, 2021, Twitter user bokchiy reposted a TikTok of an Australian using a swing in Bali, writing, "i cant they really say 'naur' LMFAOOOO," gaining over 9,800 retweets and 112,000 likes (shown below).

Precursor

The jokes are reminiscent of a 2019 trend that found TikTokers poking fun of the Australian film H2O: Just Add Water, particularly how characters in the film would pronounce the character Cleo's name like "Cleaur."

Spread

On May 29th, 2021, Twitter user @mitsukileaks^[1] tweeted, "what if mitski was australian and when she sings nobody she says naurbody instead," gaining over 290 retweets and 1,900 likes. On June 7th, they expanded on the joke,^[2] writing, "australian mitski fans be like naurbody naurbody naurbody naurbody ooh naurbody naurbody," gaining over 1,900 retweets and 8,600 likes (shown below, left). On June 5th, Twitter user @reindeereks^[4] tweeted, "australians trapped in a jigsaw trap would be like 'oh naur it's jigsaur,'" gaining over 8,400 retweets and 66,000 likes (shown below, right).

On June 2nd, Twitter user @kunfukenny2000^[5] tweeted, "imagine u propose to someone and their response is 'naur,'" gaining over 180 retweets and 5,100 likes (shown below, left). On June 8th, Twitter user @ivyparkspr^[6] tweeted, "Do Australians sing crazy in love like oh oh oh oh oh oh oh naur naur," gaining over 40 retweets and 360 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were covered by Junkee.^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References