by Amanda Laugesen
Canberra word: guvvie (and ex-guvvie)
Guvvies in the Canberra suburb of Downer, 1961
The terms guvvie (also govie) for government housing—’a house originally built or bought by the government for low-cost or subsidised rental’, and ex-guvvie (also ex-govie) for ‘a house that was formerly built or owned by government but has been sold into the private market’, are two term ‘invented’ by Canberrans. Continue reading
by Mark Gwynn
A recent contribution to the ANDC Word Box was the word shaggledick.* The contributor provided two dictionary references for this word and suggested that it may be a ‘Mountweazel’ word. A Mountweazel is a fictitious entry deliberately added to a reference work. The term was coined by the New Yorker magazine and named after a fictitious entry for one Lillian Virginia Mountweazel in the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975 edition). According to one of the editors: ‘It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright… If someone copied Lillian, then we’d know they’d stolen from us’ (New Yorker, 29 August 2005).
by Amanda Laugesen
April 25 marks one of Australia’s most important national days, Anzac Day. Last year, we looked at the phrase ‘One Day of the Year’. This year, we take a look at a number of terms that were first used during the Gallipoli campaign by the soldiers who served there in the First World War. Continue reading
by Mark Gwynn
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away.
And had joined the wild bush horses – he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
(opening lines of ‘The Man from Snowy River’, 1890)
Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s poems and his use of the Australian vernacular have endeared him to generations of Australians. In the Australian National Dictionary (a dictionary of Australian English using quotations to provide evidence of how words are used over time) Paterson is quoted 78 times. His poems provide valuable evidence of 19th and early 20th century Australian English—particularly the language of the Australian bush. In this blog I will look closely at some of the Australianisms found in ‘The Man from Snowy River’.
by Julia Robinson
Australia’s love affair with ‘proper’ coffee means that a teaspoon of instant coffee in a cup of boiling water no longer satisfies us as it did twenty-five years ago. We now prefer to drink espresso-based coffees such as cappuccino, caffè latte, short black, flat white, ristretto, or macchiato. We’ve come a long way; back in 1990 a North Sydney coffee lounge placed a classified ad for staff that read in part: ‘If you know the difference between a flat white and a Capuccino ring me’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July).
by Amanda Laugesen
In Australian English a number of terms derive from an association with place names. The Barcoo River in Western Queensland gave its name to a number of terms which became associated with outback life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They include Barcoo rot, Barcoo sickness, Barcoo spews, Barcoo dog, and Barcoo shout.
‘Barcoo’ possibly derives from a word for ‘river’ in the Birriya and Kungkari languages of the area. Henry Kendall wrote a poem in the middle of the 19th century celebrating the river, but through the late 19th century the term came to be associated with aspects of life in the outback, usually with reference to the problems experienced there. Continue reading
by Mark Gwynn
Since the adoption of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ as Australia’s national anthem there have been a number of vocal critics. Some of these critics are nostalgic for the former anthem ‘God Save the Queen’, others prefer the unofficial anthem ‘Waltzing Matilda’, while others are uninspired by the tune and lyrics. In this blog I will look at one very particular criticism – the retention of the word girt. The word is archaic and rare in other Englishes but thanks to the anthem Australians know it well.
by Julia Robinson
The surprising and important fact that most Australians do not know is that there are almost 140 species of freshwater crayfish in Australia. (Susan Lawler, The Conversation, 4 February 2013)
Fishing for yabbies (freshwater crayfish) is a happy childhood memory for many Aussie kids living near a dam or creek. The traditional technique is to bait a length of string with a piece of fresh meat, lower it into the water, wait for the yabby to latch on with its claws, and then pull up the string. Yabbies make delicious eating, and are also used as fishing bait.
by Mark Gwynn
This year the Australian National Dictionary Centre is showcasing Canberra words to mark the city’s centenary. The first Canberra Word blog discussed pube, a colloquial word for ‘public servant’. This blog, the second in the series, looks at the word booner, a local word meaning ‘bogan‘.
Many readers will be familiar with the Australian word bogan. A bogan is a person who is regarded as being uncultured or unsophisticated. There are a number of regional terms across Australia for this type of person. One of the earliest examples of this kind of word is westie. A westie is used to describe a person from the western suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne. Other states provide us with the words bevan (Queensland), bog (Western Australia), and chigga (Tasmania), to name just a few. Like bogan, all these words carry an underlying judgment – that people from working-class or low socio-economic backgrounds are uncultured, crass, and unsophisticated.
by Julia Robinson
Mem Fox. Image source: www.memfox.net
This week we celebrate the birthday of Mem Fox (born 5 March 1946), Australian writer of children’s books. She is the author of such favourite picture books as Koala Lou, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, and Wombat Divine, but the book that made her a household name is her first book, Possum Magic, the runaway bestseller that has sold several million copies since it was published in 1983. It is the tale of possums Hush and Grandma Poss, who leave their bush home to find a cure for Hush’s magic invisibility. Continue reading