Notes on Australianisms

"Notes on Australianisms" by Henry Lawson is a fascinating exploration of the unique language and colloquialisms that characterize Australian English. Written by one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, the work delves into the idiosyncrasies of Australian speech, highlighting its humor, creativity, and cultural significance. Through witty observations and anecdotes, Lawson captures the essence of Australian identity, showcasing how language both reflects and shapes the experiences of the nation’s people. The book is a valuable resource for linguists, historians, and anyone interested in the rich tapestry of Australian culture.

• Short story

								
Based on my own speech over the years, with some checking in the
dictionaries. Not all of these are peculiar to Australian slang, but
are important in Lawson's stories, and carry overtones.

 bagman: commercial traveller
 Bananaland: Queensland
 billabong:  Based on an aboriginal word.  Sometimes used for an
   anabranch (a bend in a river cut off by a new channel, but more
   often used for one that, in dry season or droughts
   especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main
   stream.  It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely.
 billy: quintessentially Australian.  It is like (or may even be made
  out of) a medium-sized can, with wire handles and a lid.  Used to
  boil water.  If for tea, the leaves are added into the billy itself.
  The billy may be swung ['to make the leaves settle') or a eucalyptus
  twig place across the top, more ritual than pragmatic.
  These stories are supposedly told while the billy is suspended over
  the fire at night, at the end of a tramp.
  (Also used in want of other things, for cooking)
 blackfellow (also, blackman): condescending for Australian Aboriginal
 blackleg:  also scab.  Someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to
   break a workers' strike.  As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up
   on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never
cross a picket line.
 blanky or  ---:  Fill in your own favourite word.  Usually however used
   for “bloody”
  blucher: a kind of half-boot (named after the Austrian general)
 
 blued: of a wages cheque: all spent extravagantly--and rapidly.
 bluey: swag.  Supposedly because blankets were mostly blue (so Lawson)
 boggabri: Probably Aboriginal for several low herbs, esp. Amaranthus mitchelli,
 Chenopodium pumilio, C. carinatum and Commelina cyanea (scurvy grass);
also a town in NSW. [Australian National Dictionary, OUP 1988]
What then is a 'tater-marrer' (potato-marrow?).  Any help?
 bowyangs: ties (cord, rope, cloth) put around trouser legs below knee
 bullocky: Bullock driver.  A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to
   wagons carrying, e.g., wool bales or provisions.  Proverbially rough and
   foul mouthed.
 bush: originally referred to the low tangled scrubs of the semi-desert
   regions ['mulga' and 'mallee'), and hence equivalent to
   “outback”.  Now used generally for remote rural areas (“the
   bush”) and scrubby forest.
 bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires.
  bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from
  cities, “in the bush”. (today: a “bushy”)
 bushranger: an Australian “highwayman”, who lived in the 'bush'--
   scrub--and attacked especially gold carrying coaches and banks.
   Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures--cf. Ned
   Kelly--but usually very violent.

 cheque: wages for a full season of sheep-shearing; meant to last until
  the next year, including a family, but often 'blued' in a 'spree'
 chyack: (chy-ike) like chaffing; to tease, mildly abuse
 cocky: a farmer, esp. dairy farmers (='cow-cockies')
 cubby-house, or cubby:  Children's playhouse (“Wendy house” is
  commercial form))

 Darlinghurst: Sydney suburb, where the gaol was in those days
 dead marine: empty beer bottle
 dossing: sleeping rough or poorly (as in a “doss-house”)
 doughboy: kind of dumpling
 drover: one who “droves” cattle or sheep.
 droving: driving on horseback cattle or sheep from where they were
  fattened to a a city, or later, a rail-head.
 drown the miller: to add too much water to flour when cooking.
  Used metaphorically in story.

 fossick: pick over areas for gold.  Not mining as such.

 half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence.  As a coin, a half-crown.
 half-sov.: a coin worth half a pound (sovereign)

 Gladesville: Sydney suburb, where the mental hospital used to be
 goanna: various kinds of monitor lizards.  Can be quite a size.

 Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney
 humpy: originally an aboriginal shelter (=gunyah); extended to a
  settler's hut

 jackaroo: (Jack + kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)--someone, in early
   days a new immigrant from England, learning to work on a
   sheep/cattle station (U.S. “ranch”)
 jumbuck: a sheep (best known from Waltzing Matilda: “where's that
   jolly jumbuck, you've got in your tucker bag”.

 larrikin: anything from a disrespectful young man to a violent member
   of a gang (“push”).  Was considered a major social problem in
   Sydney of the 1880's to 1900. The Bulletin, a magazine in
   which much of Lawson was published, spoke of the “aggressive,
   soft-hatted “stoush brigade”.  Anyone today who is disrespectful of
   authority or convention is said to show the larrikin element in the
   Australian character.
 larrikiness: jocular feminine form
 leather-jacket: kind of pancake (more often a fish, these days)
 lucerne: cattle feed-a leguminous plant, alfalfa in US
 lumper: labourer; esp. on wharves?

 mallee: dwarfed eucalyptus trees growing in very poor soil and under
   harsh rainfall conditions.  Usually many stems emerging from the
   ground, creating a low thicket.
 Maoriland: Lawson's name for New Zealand
 marine, dead: see 'dead marine'
 mooching: wandering idly, not going anywhere in particular
 mug: gullible person, a con-man's 'mark' (potential victim)
 mulga: Acacia sp. (“wattle” in Australian) especially Acacia aneura;
   growing in semi-desert conditions.  Used as a description of such
   a harsh region.
 mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed.  In Lawson
   generally mud (alluvial) rather than rock
 myall: aboriginal living in a traditional pre-conquest manner

 narked: annoyed
 navvies: labourers (especially making roads, railways; originally
  canals, thus from 'navigators')
 nobbler: a drink
 nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled

 pannikin: metal mug
 peckish: hungry--usually only mildly so.  Use here is thus ironic.
 poley: a dehorned cow
 poddy-(calf): a calf separated from its mother but still needing milk

 rouseabout: labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed.  Considered to be,
   as far as any work is, unskilled labour.

 sawney: silly, gormless
 selector: small farmer who under the “Selection Act (Alienation of
  Land Act”, Sydney 1862 could settle on a few acres of land and farm
  it, with hope of buying it.  As the land had been leased by
  “squatters” to run sheep, they were NOT popular.  The land was
  usually pretty poor, and there was little transport to get food to
  market, many, many failed. (The same mistake was made after WWI when
  returned soldiers were given land to starve on.)
 shanty: besides common meaning of shack it refers to an unofficial
   (and illegal) grog-shop; in contrast to the legal 'pub'.
 spieler: con artist
 sliprails: in lieu of a gate, the rails of a fence may be loosely
  socketed into posts, so that they may 'let down' (i.e. one end pushed
  in socket, the other end resting on the ground).  See 'A Day on a
  Selection'
 spree: prolonged drinking bout--days, weeks.

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes