Category: Language
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Word of the month – May: stack hat
noun: a bicycle helmet; a safety helmet for sporting activities. For many Australian children, owning a bike is a ticket to freedom. Older generations will recall the days when it was normal for kids to tear around the neighbourhood on bikes, unsupervised and bare-headed. Today attitudes have changed, along with regulations that require cyclists to…
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Mock foods continued: colonial goose
By Bernadette Hince First published in the April 2019 edition of Ozwords ‘Colonial goose’ — that rings a bell! In 1970s Melbourne, our typically Australian Anglo-Celtic family of the time went to mass every Sunday and came home to a family ‘roast dinner’ for lunch, almost always a leg of lamb. We all loved roast…
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On Barrackers and Barracking
By Matthew Klugman In 1877 the Melbourne writer Marcus Clarke mocked celebrations of the coming greatness of white Australia in an essay on The Future Australian Race. Among other attributes, Clarke predicted that Australian men would become renowned for their ‘good lungs’ and strong jaws. But while Clarke was imagining the Australia of 1977, within…
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Word of the Month – April: rolled-gold
adjective: first-class; absolute. Rolled-gold is used in Australian English to imply something undeniably good, first-class or genuine, such as a rolled-gold opportunity or a rolled-gold offer. Evidence dates from the early 1980s. The term is often found in the phrase rolled-gold guarantee, notably used in early 2018 by National Party deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, who gave a ‘rolled-gold guarantee’ that Barnaby Joyce would…
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Word of the Month – March: Tassie tuxedo
noun: (also Tasmanian tuxedo) a quilted jacket filled with a light insulating material; a puffer jacket. In the online version of the Lonely Planet travel guide, some helpful advice is given to those contemplating a trip to Tasmania (or Tassie): A ‘Tassie tuxedo’ – aka a down-filled ‘puffer’ jacket – is mandatory Tasmanian garb in…
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Word of the Month – February: fair dinkumness
noun: reliability; genuineness; honesty; truthfulness. A headline for a recent online article reads: ‘Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister for fair dinkumness, is losing election options fast’. The article mentions a debate surrounding that most Australian of traditions, the sausage sizzle: At a more retail political level, the Prime Minister for fair dinkumness got himself involved…
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How dictionaries preserve and celebrate Australian English
Through the last 30 years, the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC), in collaboration with Oxford University Press (OUP), has produced Australia’s most authoritative and successful dictionaries, as well as a significant number of research monographs. This body of work has documented the rich history and contemporary dimensions of Australian English. Before the production of the…
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Word of the Month – December: flog
Flog: noun (derogatory) a pretentious or conceited person; a fool. THE STORY BEHIND THE WORD OF THE MONTH A reader’s comment, published in a community newspaper in 2012, uses the word flog as an insult: ‘Lazy Phoners: If you use your hands-free on the phone when your hands are free, you’re a flog.’ (Brisbane MX, 10…