I always refer to myself as Aussie. I don't recall ever seeing Ozzie myself, so I can't say where it came from.

Just the ignorance of the person who created the forum, I guess!

probably came about because when you say aussie aus' it can sound the same as ozzie or oz looks in writting, also there used to be a saturday night variety show on the idiot box had a character called ozzy ostrich or something?

for me i doesn't matter what i get called so long as it isn't late for a free feed hey lol, and unlike our friends across the pacific we do have a national identity nickname that is ours alone, and alomst uniquely we have state based nick's that suit us eg.,. banana benders, crow eaters etc.,. proud to be uniquely aussie, ozzy whatever you know what i mean hey lol

be happy

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I don't know where it started from but I use the term Oz on US forums, rather than Aus, because the Americans refer to us as Aussies with a soft 'S' sound, and we use the hard 's' sound. The american translation of "Aussie" sounds to me like a little child trying to say horsey :-)
So lets stick with Oz. At least it makes it clear that we aren't Austrian!

I think it's "Aussie" for the people and "Oz" for the country, not "Ozzie" for the people and "Aus", (except in the abbreviated written form), for the country. Either way, I think we're lucky to have such a friendly sounding nick name.

Can't remember when, but I seem to remember the Mayor of Brisbane at the time, Sally Ann Atkinson, was going for The Olympic Games in Brisbane and one of the formats used was a really beautiful series of pictures showing Australia and Australians with the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz playing during it.

Was it Oz before this ?

and what about that idiot Barry Crocker and that dreadful movie he was in, can't remember the name.
Peter Allan was the Boy from Oz.

Marion,

the Adventures of Barry Mackenzie...I think he was Bazza.

Oz or Aus or Aussie - it doesn't matter so long as the americans know we are different from them :-)

though there are problems when I mention I'm from the sunshine coast - some assume I'm canadian (there's a Sunshine Coast inBritish Columbia - I'm not sure where they get the sunshine from up there)

Oz is the abbreviation for Ounce

and AU is the abbreviation for Gold

So, as Australia is a land with gold mines here and there the compounding of Oz AU describes it.