Gordon Barlow

"Don't come the raw prawn [with me]!" Now there's a classic for the ages! Common in my young days - I wonder if it's still in use.

Gordon Barlow

Everyone knows that a joey is a baby kangaroo, but when I was a boy in the Queensland bush a joey was a snake - a Joe Blake. I wonder if that's still used today.

Gordon Barlow

My wife - to her shame - still uses the word "cark", derived from "carcase", to mean "die" or maybe "faint". "It was so hot in there I thought I was going to cark it." After fifty-odd years out of Oz, she really ought to have let go of that one. Does anybody back there use the word these days?

ozzieeagle

I reckon thats one they use or used to in London.....not sure

Gordon Barlow

This thread has over a hundred views for each posting, which is very encouraging; and I hope someone among the next hundred will throw some light on the subject. Most Australian slang seems to have originated in either Britain or the USA. Of the British origins, most seem to be regional-dialect words of the period that may not have survived in those places of origin. Even the quintessential Aussie term "fair dinkum" - I once read - began in some part of Yorkshire. Can anybody confirm or deny that?

BritInParis

I use that and I'm not Australian nor live in Australia. There's lot of intermingling between British and Australian slang.

Gordon Barlow

Interesting, Brit. Can you recall where you picked it up, and in what region it was used? I've never heard a UK native use the word, ever.

ozzieeagle

I checked it out on my Catford and Lewisham facebook page, almost everyone there knows it and a large number use the term. The Londoners believe it's Colonial Indian in origin.

Gordon Barlow

Thank, Brit. I Googled the word - which I should have done before, I guess - and it seems there are two verbs "cark", not necessarily related. According to the Google entries, one means "worry", and may derive from a Hindi and/or Tamil word, the other means "die" and is probably a shortening of "carcase".

I have friends who live in Blackheath, so next time I'm in the vicinity I'll wander around Lewisham and listen out for the word, to see which of those two meanings it has there!

Gordon Barlow

Wowser is a word I haven't heard for many years, from Australian expats. It used to be applied to a person who had puritan opinions, more or less. I wonder if it still does, if it's in use.

BritInParis

My better half describes it as someone who is 'a bit of wet blanket'.

xizzles

Poofter - I'm ashamed to admit - was what we used to called a man afflicted with radial nerve palsy (learnt that back in anatomy class oh, some 30 or 40 years ago, amazing the specific stuff the brain remembers and everything else the brain forgets), but as you said, that was before PC and the feminazis took over the world.