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Australian slang from long ago

Australian slang from long ago

Old Jan 7th 2017, 12:26 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

I haven't heard the expression "in like Flynn" for a while. Living overseas the only Aussies I mix with are other expats, who might have discontinued using the expression - or maybe it has just passed out of fashion back in Oz. Any thoughts from readers?
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Old Jan 7th 2017, 9:26 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
I haven't heard the expression "in like Flynn" for a while. Living overseas the only Aussies I mix with are other expats, who might have discontinued using the expression - or maybe it has just passed out of fashion back in Oz. Any thoughts from readers?

Its had the kibosh....Its Cactus ....

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Old Jan 8th 2017, 2:29 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Originally Posted by ozzieeagle
Its had the kibosh....Its Cactus ....
Thanks, Ozzie. I've never heard "cactus" used in slang. Not in my day!
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Old Jan 13th 2017, 2:05 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Somebody who knew I was Australian-born called me "cobber" the other day, which raised a smile.The last time I heard it was 20 or 30 years ago in New Zealand, in a conversation between two Kiwis. Is it still used there?
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Old Jan 16th 2017, 12:55 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

I remember an early TV show in Oz featuring George Wallace jr. George was a judge hearing a case when a beautiful young woman barrister crossed the courtroom and distracted him. Other barrister: "Your Honour! Your Honour!" George, with a leer, "Too right! I was on 'er the minute she came in". "Your Honour!" became a bit of a catchphrase in my crowd, when the circumstances matched. "Too right!" is an old English expression - and a "too-right" in Oz was middle-class speak for an uncouth yob, back then.
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Old Jan 16th 2017, 9:14 pm
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One of the first things I had to do, when I reached England at age 23 and never having been outside Australia before, was to eliminate all the slang words I'd grown up with - if I wanted to be understood, which of course I did. So - no more calling trousers "daks" or "dungers", for instance. Both those words are (I think) of English origin, but they were met with blank stares in London. Only much later did I realise that most Australian slang originated somewhere in England, but because of the prevalence of regional dialects it was only in the colonies that dialectal words became mainstream. I've read since that the quintessentially Oz term "fair dinkum" originated in Yorkshire - or somewhere up north, anyway.

And then there were one or two brand-names that had different connotations in England and Australia. There is a story (probably apocryphal) of a young Aussie girl, newly arrived, who asked in Boots The Chemist if they had any Durex with "Happy Xmas" stamped on it for her boyfriend's Xmas present. She was referring - need I explain? - to sticky tape. Fair suck o' the sav, eh?
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Old Jan 23rd 2017, 6:27 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Do irritating people still get called "dags", these days?
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Old Jan 23rd 2017, 7:49 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
Do irritating people still get called "dags", these days?
My other half calls me a 'dag' on occasion though she means it as 'naff' rather than irritating.
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Old Jan 23rd 2017, 9:42 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

Originally Posted by BritInParis
My other half calls me a 'dag' on occasion though she means it as 'naff' rather than irritating.
This is the technical meaning of the word: Daglock | Define Daglock at Dictionary.com "a dung-caked lock of wool around the hindquarters of a sheep", and was in common use in the bush at shearing-time. We kids had to make sure the shearers didn't sweep any dags (and any stray stones) into the wool-bales to fill them more quickly. That would have given the wool-shipper a bad reputation with the buyers, and cost him dearly at future auctions.

By natural transfer, it was used as slang (in Queensland, at least) to mean a worthless person, often teasingly/ironically even to the point of praise. Rather like the use of "bugger", in that way. We must hope your wife intends it ironically, Brit!
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Old Jan 29th 2017, 3:34 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

This isn't slang as such, but a comment that my mother's mother used to make, which our family adopted and which I find myself using from time to time. "She's got ideas above her station." Very dismissive! I suppose I must have seen it in print occasionally, but I can't bring any instance to mind. It sounds ever-so-slightly pompous - snobbish, even. Does any reader here remember encountering it?
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Old Feb 7th 2017, 5:49 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

"Stone the crows!": that's one I haven't heard in a long time. But I see - in my little world - that "cripes!" has made a bit of a comeback. I think I even heard it on a US TV show recently. What's the situation Down Under?
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Old Feb 14th 2017, 7:42 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

"Old mate" seems to be quite popular for someone you don't know the name of

Beating up a lizard to make him admit he's a crocodile

I heard "Jesus bolt" the other day, (Who's the Jesus bolt in this operation? - as in who's ultimately responsible) which was an interesting one but seems that may be American.
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Old Feb 17th 2017, 10:26 pm
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

My old boss in Toowoomba used to say, as a mild curse, "Blimey Charlie!" I know Blimey is a traditional English curse, but in England I never heard Charlie tagged onto it. Is the latter English or Australian?
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Old Feb 25th 2017, 12:27 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

I wonder if “waddy” is still in use – as either a noun or a verb. In my youth it meant “a stick” or “to beat with a stick” – usually with the sense of a big stick, and with the qualifier “bloody great” in front of the noun. A useful word, it always seemed to me. I fondly remember its appearance in Banjo Paterson’s poem about the fictional Geebung Polo Club:-

…For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.
And the Cuff and Collar captain, when he tumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving player - so the game was called a tie.


I once wrote a newspaper column with the title “The last surviving player”. It was just too good a phrase to pass up! Actually, the Cuff and Collar captain was not the last to die in the epic match, but you’ll have to Google the poem to find out what happened next…
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Old Mar 2nd 2017, 3:37 am
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Default Re: Australian slang from long ago

I left Oz in 1963, before political correctness took over private conversations. I'm interested to know: is it still acceptable today to describe something as "a bit pooffy"? I'm thinking of an article of male clothing that is effeminate, or a photo. An Aussie visitor the other week used the word in that sense, and I was taken aback. I used to use it, but don't any more; and I've not heard an English person use it, as far as I can recall. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.
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