Australian National Dictionary Centre
Research School of Humanities
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Australian National Dictionary Centre
Research School of Humanities
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Australian Words: C-Gcark itTo die, as in don’t tell the kids the budgie carked it. The origin is uncertain. Perhaps it is a play on the standard English word croak ‘to die’, or it may be a shortening of carcass. Cark it also means ‘to fail or break down completely’: my blender’s carked it. Back to Index of Australian Words chardonnay socialistA derogatory label for a person who pays lip service to left-wing views while enjoying an affluent lifestyle. It is modelled on the British term, champagne socialist, which has a similar meaning. The term chardonnay socialist appeared in 1989, not long after the grape variety Chardonnay became extremely popular with Australian wine drinkers. Back to Index of Australian Words chookA domestic fowl. Chook comes from British dialect chuck or chucky 'chicken', a word imitating a hen's cluck. Australians use 'chicken' to mean ‘the meat of the bird’ or ‘a baby fowl’. Chook is the common term for the live bird, although chook raffles, held in Australian pubs, have ready-to-cook chooks as prizes. First recorded as chuckey 1855. Back to Index of Australian Words chook: may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny downA comic curse. This expression recalls an earlier time when many Australians kept chooks in the back yard and the dunny was a separate outhouse. A similar comic exaggeration is seen in the phrase ‘he couldn’t train a choko vine over a country dunny’— a comment on a person’s incompetence. Back to Index of Australian Words chunderTo vomit. Also used as noun ‘vomit’. Chunder probably comes from a once-popular cartoon character, 'Chunder Loo of Akim Foo', drawn by Norman Lindsay for a series of boot-polish advertisements in the early 1900s. It is possible that 'Chunder Loo' became rhyming slang for 'spew'. Chunder, however, is the only form to be recorded. First recorded 1950. Back to Index of Australian Words cobberA friend, a companion. Also used as a form of address (g’day cobber!). The word probably comes from British dialect cob 'to take a liking to', although a Yiddish word khaber 'comrade' has also been suggested as a source. Cobber, now somewhat dated, is rarely used by young Australians. First recorded 1893. Back to Index of Australian Words cockyA farmer. In Australia there are cow cockies, cane cockies and wheat cockies. Cocky arose in the 1840s and is an abbreviation of cockatoo farmer. This was then a disparaging term for small-scale farmers, probably because of their habit of using a small area of land for a short time and then moving on, in the manner of cockatoos feeding. Back to Index of Australian Words coolibahThe term coolibah is best known from the opening lines of Banjo Paterson's Waltzing Matilda:
The word is a borrowing from Yuwaaliyaay, an Aboriginal language of Northern New South Wales. In the earlier period it was was spelt in various ways, including coolabah, coolobar, and coolybah. It is term for any of several eucalypts, especially the blue-leaved Eucalyptus microtheca found across central and northern Australia, a fibrous-barked tree yielding a durable timber and occurring in seasonally flooded areas. The word is first recorded in 1893 by E. Palmer in Plants of Northern Queensland:
Back to Index of Australian Words cordieCordie is a term for an army cadet from the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra. The term is used by civilians (especially Canberrans), and then the term is regarded by cadets as highly derogatory; but the term is also used by cadets themselves, and then the term is one of camaraderie. It is most commonly assumed by cadets themselves that the term arose at the time when cadets were not allowed to wear denim jeans outside the college, whereupon, as a 'fashion' substitute, they wore corduroy trousers (the minimum dress standard) in order to fit in with the way contemporary and 'with it' young males would be expected to costume themselves. Since the cadets soon came to be readily recognisable as such, even when out of uniform, partly because of their corduroy clothing (often abbreviated to cords in Standard Australian), they came to be (mockingly?) referred to as cordies. Although this is the generally accepted explanation, others are offered:
It seems unlikely, however, that the term 'Cora' would be altered to cordie, although as the evidence following indicates, the term 'Cora' was in existence from the mid-1920s. Air Commodore P.G. Heffernan (who graduated from RMC in 1928) in his unpublished manuscript Duntroon Days (copy in RMC Archives), p. 49, gives 'Cora' as a Duntroon slang term for 'The Corps of Staff Cadets', and in his account (p. 32) of the 1926 initiation ceremony provides two usages of the term (the following quotation begins with the initiands' oath of allegiance to the Corps - I have quoted only the opening and closing couplets):
Having recited the oath, the victim quaffed a dose of 'Creme de Cora', which was a mixture of rifle oil, Holbrooks sauce and a well known brand of proprietary medicine which produced a lovely blue colour when it reappeared". The Australian National Dictionary suggests a different derivation: "Probably from cord, in allusion to the epaulettes of a dress uniform: see quotation 1945 where the reference is in a military context and to servants". We now recognise that there are some problems with this explanation. The first problem is that an epaulette is not really made of "cord", nor does an epaulette resemble cord. The second problem with it, as Rayward points out, is that cadets do not wear epaulettes. The Australian National Dictionary citation in support of its etymology is from the Weekend Magazine, 25 November 1945. This was a magazine produced by the 15th Australian Infantry Brigade when it was serving in the Solomon Islands. The passage from it, as quoted by the dictionary, reads: "How would you like to be waited on by 1000 people - or should I say Kordies?" The Weekend Magazine article is headed "1000 Servants". It reads in full:
It is clear that the kordies in the article above are not specifically 'military' servants, nor is the context military: rather these kordies are palace-servants of the Emperor Hirohito, and the context would seem to be (even if extravagantly so) domestic. Ironically, it would seem that the usage of kordies in this article (especially with the k- spelling) points to an origin for the Duntroon cordie quite different from those posited by Rayward and the Australian National Dictionary. John R. Hall in The Real John Kerr (Sydney, 1978), pp. 70-71, explains how some administrators sent to New Guinea in 1945 by the Australian Minister for Transport and Territories, Eddie Ward, in order to set in train new policy initiatives, were disparagingly referred to by the 'old guard' as "Wardie's Kordies". Hall explains the term Kordies:
An examination of the actual cartoons is instructive. In the early to mid 1940s in the Mandrake the Magician cartoon series in The Australian Women's Weekly a character called Baron Kord is introduced. He is a "sinister-looking man", and he is attracted to Princess Narda ("Mandrake's one love"), and intends to marry her. Baron Kord has a mysterious "powder" which, when added to drinking water, has the power to turn men into "the living dead", i.e., "Kordies". One (1942) cartoon sequence describes them as follows: "See those people down there? Those are the mindless, lifeless ones. They move only to work and obey. They feel no pain, heat or cold. All they see is a dense haze. We call them Kordies". Baron Kord builds up a vast army of these mindless servants in order to serve his wicked purposes. When Mandrake and Narda are lured by Baron Kord to a "masque ball" at Kord Key ("isle of the walking dead"), Mandrake asks the Baron who all the men are, and the Baron replies, "my servants". Mandrake muses: "Servants? Looks like a regiment [emphasis mine]". Mandrake substitutes salt for the mysterious powder in the Kordies' drinking water, and initially there appears to be no change in their kordie condition. "Kordies still Kordies" observes Lothar (Mandrake's "giant Nubian servant"). To which Mandrake responds: "Perhaps they will always be, Lothar". Yet they eventually come back to life, and Mandrake asks the first one to revive how much he remembers of his Kordie existence, to which the reply is: "Everything! It was like a nightmare that never ended!" The guards suspect at this point that they hear voices coming from the Kordies' compound, but they dismiss the possibility: "Don't be a dope," says one, "Kordies can't talk". Baron Kord continues on his evil way, oblivious of the discovery of his secret, and his Hitler-like aim is to take over the world: "he dreams of a Kordie world - of millions of silent slaves who will work and obey without protest". He is, of course, mistaken, and he is defeated. There seems to me little doubt that this cartoon sequence is the origin of the Weekend Magazine citation in The Australian National Dictionary. It also offers a very tempting explanation for the origin of Duntroon cordie. The parallel between the servants of Baron Kord and the uniformed Duntroon cadets who carried out the tasks allotted them by their 'masters', returning each night not to the "Kordie corral" but to the clink (as Duntroon was known), must surely have occurred to some Canberrans (if not to the cadets themselves!). And The Australian Women's Weekly was a very widely read magazine. The term kordie would have been used in speech, and no doubt at some stage it became blurred with the similar sounding Corps, hence the shift in spelling from k- to c-. It seems that this Mandrake the Magician cartoon series is the frontrunner in any explanation of the origin of cordie. At least, the etymology of the term will need to be revised for the next edition of The Australian National Dictionary. Some sample citations:
Back to Index of Australian Words crookBad, unpleasant or unsatisfactory: Things were crook on the land in the seventies. Crook means bad in a general sense, and also in more specific senses too: unwell or injured (a crook knee), and dishonest or illegal (he was accused of crook dealings). It is an abbreviation of crooked ‘dishonestly come by’. Back to Index of Australian Words cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie downA joking term for a cure-all, the remedy for any problem. The phrase (now often with some variations) was originally the title of a 1960s Sydney theatrical revue. The cuppa, the Bex (an analgesic in powder form) and the lie down were supposed to be the suburban housewife’s solution to problems such as depression, anxiety, isolation and boredom. The expression is often used in political contexts—‘He called the ASEAN ambassadors in for a cup of tea, a Bex and a quick lie down’. Back to Index of Australian Words currency lad or lassA native-born Australian. In the early days of the Australian colony English gold pieces were called sterling, but there were also ‘inferior’ coins from many countries. These were called currency. The ‘sterling’ British-born immigrants used the word currency to belittle the native-born Australians, but the Australians soon used it of themselves with pride. First recorded 1824. Back to Index of Australian Words dag: rattle your dagsHurry up, get a move on. Dags are clumps of matted wool and dung which hang around a sheep’s rear end. When a ‘daggy’ sheep runs, the dried dags knock together to make a rattling sound. The word dag (originally daglock) was a British dialect word that was borrowed into mainstream Australian English in the late nineteenth century. Back to Index of Australian Words damperA simple bread made from flour and water and traditionally cooked in the ashes of a campfire. The word comes from Britain, the British damper meaning ‘a snack that dampens the appetite’. Because it was the most common form of bread for bush workers in the nineteenth century, to earn your damper means to be worth your pay. First recorded 1825. Back to Index of Australian Words didgeridooThe didgeridoo is a wind instrument that was originally found only in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. It is a long, wooden, tubular instrument that produces a low-pitched, resonant sound with complex, rhythmic patterns but little tonal variation. In popular understanding most Australians probably believe that this is an Aboriginal word. Indeed, the 1988 edition of The Australian National Dictionary attributed it to the Yolngu language of northern Queensland. Subsequent research has cast doubt on this etymology, and in 1990 the following statement was made in Australian Aboriginal Words in English: 'Although it has been suggested that this must be a borrowing from an Australian language it is not one. The name probably evolved from white people's ad hoc imitation of the sound of the instrument'. This argument is supported by the two earliest citations:
Back to Index of Australian Words diggerAn Australian soldier. The term was applied during the First World War to Australian and New Zealand soldiers because so much of their time was spent digging trenches. An earlier Australian sense of digger was ‘a miner digging for gold ’. Billy Hughes, prime minister during the First World War, was known as the Little Digger. First recorded in this sense 1916. Back to Index of Australian Words dinner: done like a dinnerComprehensively outwitted or defeated—‘Collingwood was done like a dinner in the grand final’. The phrase was first recorded in 1847. The origin is uncertain, but a common variation is ‘done like a dog’s dinner’, which implies a meal devoured with enthusiasm, and the bowl licked clean. This may give a clue to the source of the phrase. If you are done like a dinner, you are completely and efficiently demolished. Back to Index of Australian Words dobTo inform on someone (dobbing on your mates), or to volunteer someone for an unwelcome task (I was dobbed in to organise the fete). The ethic of standing by one’s mates means that many Australians take a dim view of dobbing. The origin of dob is uncertain. First recorded 1956. Back to Index of Australian Words dog fenceThe dog fence is the longest continuous barrier constructed on earth. Stretching 5300 km from the Great Australian Bight in South Australia across the country and through Queensland, the fence is designed to keep out the dingoes (the dogs) in the north from sheep country in the south. Much of the original wire-netting fence has been upgraded, with some sections electrified using solar power. Back to Index of Australian Words dog licenceA contemptuous term for the certificate issued to some Aborigines, exempting them from laws which applied to Aborigines only, especially laws against their buying alcohol. The select few who were awarded a dog licence became ‘honorary whites’. Dog licences or dog tags were issued in most states until the 1960s. First recorded 1955. Back to Index of Australian Words dolly’s wax: full up to dolly’s wax‘Would you like more dessert?’ ‘No, I’m full up to dolly’s wax.’ This rather old-fashioned phrase means that you have eaten enough. It refers to the time before plastics were widely used, when children’s dolls had wax heads attached to cloth bodies. This example illustrates the way the origins of words and phrases can be lost with changes in technology. These days the expression is likely to be replaced by full as a goog. Back to Index of Australian Words donkey voteIn a compulsory parliamentary election, voters must numerically rank each candidate in order of preference. Voters who merely number the candidates in the order they are listed on the ballot paper (without regard for the merits of the candidates) are casting a donkey vote —that is, a stupid vote. First recorded 1962. Back to Index of Australian Words Dorothy DixerIn parliament, a pre-arranged question asked by a government member so that a minister can give a prepared reply. It comes from Dorothy Dix, the pen-name of Elizabeth Gilmer (1870—1951), an American journalist who wrote a famous personal advice column. Her column came to seem a little too contrived, as if she was writing the questions as well as the answers. Back to Index of Australian Words drongoDrongo is an Australian slang term used to describe a 'fool', a 'stupid person', a 'simpleton'. There is also a bird called a drongo. The spangled drongo is found in northern and eastern Australia, as well as in the islands to the north of Australia, and further north to India and China. It is called a drongo because that is the name of a bird from the same family in northern Madagascar. The spangled drongo is not a stupid bird. It is not a galah. One book describes it thus: 'The spangled drongo catches insects in the air, chasing them in aerobatic flight'. There is one odd story about the drongo, however: unlike most migratory birds, it appears to migrate to colder regions in winter. Some have suggested that this is the origin of the association of 'stupidity' with the term drongo. But this seems most unlikely. So what is the true story? There was an Australian racehorse called Drongo during the early 1920s. It seems likely that he was named after the bird called the 'drongo'. He wasn't a an absolute no-hoper of a racehorse: he ran second in a VRC Derby and St Leger, third in the AJC St Leger, and fifth in the 1924 Sydney Cup. He often came very close to winning major races, but in 37 starts he never won a race. In 1924 a writer in the Melbourne Argus comments: 'Drongo is sure to be a very hard horse to beat. He is improving with every run'. But he never did win. Soon after the horse's retirement it seems that racegoers started to apply the term to horses that were having similarly unlucky careers. Soon after the term became more negative, and was applied also to people who were not so much 'unlucky' as 'hopeless cases', 'no-hopers', and thereafter 'fools'. In the 1940s it was applied to recruits in the Royal Australian Air Force. It has become part of general Australian slang. Buzz Kennedy, writing in The Australian newspaper in 1977, defines a drongo thus:
The origin of the term was revived at Flemington in 1977 when a Drongo Handicap was held. Only apprentice jockeys were allowed to ride. The horses entered were not allowed to have won a race in the previous twelve months. Back to Index of Australian Words drop bearAn animal similar in appearance to a koala, but about 1.5 metres in height, with very sharp claws and teeth. They eat other animals, but they also have a taste for humans, especially overseas tourists. Their name derives from the fact that they lurk in trees, and drop down on their unsuspecting victims. Back to Index of Australian Words drover’s dog: like a drover’s dogDrover’s dog has been used since the 1940s in various similes, usually uncomplimentary— ‘a head like a drover’s dog’ (big and ugly), ‘all prick and ribs like a drover’s dog’ (lean and hungry), and ‘leaking like a drover’s dog’ (as in ‘the NSW Cabinet is leaking like a drover’s dog!’). It can also mean a nonentity, as when a politician commented in 1983 that ‘a drover’s dog could lead the Labor Party to victory’. Back to Index of Australian Words ducks on the pondLook out—female approaching! A warning cry from a male as a signal to other men that a woman is approaching a traditionally all-male environment. It is a reminder that the men should modify their language and behaviour to avoid giving offence. It was first used in shearing sheds, but is now heard in other places, especially in a pub. Back to Index of Australian Words dunnyA toilet. The dunny was originally any outside toilet. In cities and towns the pan-type dunny was emptied by the dunny man, who came round regularly with his dunny cart. Dunny can now be used for any toilet. The word comes from British dialect dunnekin meaning ‘dung-house’. First recorded 1933. Back to Index of Australian Words durryDurry is an Australian term for a 'cigarette'. Sidney Baker in The Australian Language (1945; 1966) suggests that the word has been in Australian English since the early twentieth century, but written evidence does not appear until the 1940s.
The origin of the term is unknown. G.A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, tentatively suggests 'from Hindi dhurri, a cotton carpet of Indian manufacture'. David Bradley, Australian Journal of Linguistics (1989) suggests that it may be derived from a widely used brand of loose tobacco used for roll-your-owns, Bull Durham, clipped and resuffixed with the most productive suffix for forming new colloquial words in Australian English'. Back to Index of Australian Words economic rationalismA government’s free-market approach to economic management. This approach is typically reflected in the adoption of privatisation, deregulation, ‘user pays’, and low public spending. Most Australians are surprised to discover that this is an Australian term. The corresponding term in Britain is Thatcherism, and in the United States Reaganomics. First recorded 1985. Back to Index of Australian Words fair goA reasonable chance, a fair deal: small business didn’t get a fair go in the last budget. Australia often sees itself as an egalitarian society, the land of the fair go, where all citizens have a right to fair treatment. It is often used as an exclamation: fair go Kev, give the kids a turn! Sometimes it expresses disbelief: fair go—the tooth fairy? Back to Index of Australian Words fairy breadSlices of white bread cut into triangles, buttered and sprinkled with tiny, coloured sugar balls called ‘hundreds and thousands’. Fairy bread is frequently served at children’s parties in Australia. The name possibly comes from the poem ‘Fairy Bread’ in Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verse, published in 1885. Back to Index of Australian Words fair suck of the sauce bottleSteady on, be reasonable. This is one of several variations on the Australian exclamation ‘fair go’. It expresses a keen sense of injustice—'fair suck of the sauce bottle, mate, I’m only asking for a loan till payday!' Sometimes ‘saveloy’ or ‘sav’ is substituted for ‘sauce bottle’. The phrase ‘fair crack of the whip’ has the same meaning. Back to Index of Australian Words female factoryA prison for women convicts. The first female factory was established in 1804 at Parramatta in New South Wales. It was a place of punishment, a labour and marriage agency for the colony, and a profit-making textiles factory where women made convict clothing and blankets. There were eight other female factories in the Australian convict settlements. Back to Index of Australian Words feralAs elsewhere, in Australia feral describes a domesticated animal that has gone wild. But in Australia it has various meanings related to people: a person living outside the home environment, often as a streetkid; a person who is wild in behaviour; a person living an alternative lifestyle (this seaside town is full of ferals). Back to Index of Australian Words flash as a rat with a gold toothOstentatious, showy and a bit too flashily dressed. This phrase is used only of a man, and implies that although he may be well-dressed and well-groomed, there is also something a bit dodgy about him. In spite of a superficial smartness, he is not to be trusted. In spite of the gold tooth, he is still a rat. Back to Index of Australian Words flat out like a lizard drinkingExtremely busy, at top speed. This is word play on two different meanings of the standard English ‘flat out’. The literal sense is to lie fully stretched out (like a lizard), and the figurative sense means as fast as possible. The phrase also alludes to the rapid tongue-movement of a drinking lizard. It is sometimes shortened, as in ‘we’re flat out like a lizard trying to meet the deadline’. Back to Index of Australian Words fossickTo search for gold. In the Cornish dialect, fossick means ‘to obtain by asking, to ferret out’. Cornish miners probably brought the term to Australia in the 1850s and used it to describe their search for gold. Australia inherited a number of mining terms from the Cornish, but they remain very specialised, and fossick is the only one to move out into the wider speech community. The word has also widened in meaning and can now refer to searching or rummaging for anything—fossicking in the drawer for a pen. Back to Index of Australian Words Fremantle doctorA cool sea breeze which brings relief on a hot summer’s day. A wind blowing inland late in the day is a welcome feature of the climate in Western Australia’s south-west. Like Fremantle, many towns have given it a local name. Albany, Geraldton, Esperance, Eucla and Perth all have their doctor, a reference to the ‘healing’ effect of the breeze. Back to Index of Australian Words galahThe word galah is a borrowing into Australian English from the Aboriginal Yuwaalaraay language of northern New South Wales. In early records it is variously spelt as galar, gillar, gulah, etc. It is first recorded in 1862 in J. McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia: `A vast number of gulahs, curellas, macaws... here'. The bird referred to is the grey-backed, pink-breasted cockatoo Eolophus roseicapillus, occurring in all parts of Australia except the extreme north-east and south-west. It is also known as the red-breasted cockatoo and rose-breasted cockatoo. Some early settlers use the galah as food. In 1902 the Truth newspaper reports: 'The sunburnt residents of at that God-forsaken outpost of civilisation were subsisting on stewed galah and curried crow'. Some writers report that galah pie was a popular outback dish. The galah, which usually appears in a large flock, has a raucous call, and it was perhaps this trait which produced the term galah session for a period allocated for private conversation, especially between women on isolated stations, over an outback radio network. F. Flynn in Northern Gateway (1963) writes: 'The women's radio hour, held regularly night and morning and referred to everywhere as the 'Galah Session'. It is a special time set aside for lonely station women to chat on whatever subject they like'. More generally, a galah session is 'a long chat' - A. Garve, Boomerang (1969): 'For hours the three men chatted... It was Dawes who said at last, "I reckon this galah session's gone on long enough".' Very commonly in Australian English galah is used to refer to a fool or idiot. A.R. Marshall and R. Drysdale in Journey among Men (1962), suggest that this sense of galah may have a non-Australian origin: 'A clue to the possible origin of the slang usage of 'galah'. In Malaya gila (pronounced gee-lah) means mad; hence orang gila, a madman'. But this explanation has not been accepted, and the Australian meaning must be a transfer from the bird, no doubt incorporating a judgment about the relative intelligence of the bird. The following citations give an indication of how the term is used:
From this sense arise a number of colloquial idioms. To be mad as a gum-tree full of galahs is to be completely crazy. To make a proper galah of oneself is to make a complete fool of oneself. A pack of galahs is a group of contemptibly idiotic people. Back to Index of Australian Words galah sessionA period allocated for informal conversation over an outback radio network, allowing regular opportunities for people in remote areas to chat. The galah session is so named because galahs gather together in flocks and have raucous calls. Galah is a borrowing (first recorded 1862) from the Yuwaalaraay language of northern New South Wales. First recorded 1956. Back to Index of Australian Words geekIn International English geek means 'a person who is socially inept or boringly conventional or studious'. The sense comes from the United States, where it originally referred to an assistant at a sideshow whose purpose was to appear an object of disgust or derision. The American word appears to be a variant of geck, a Scots word (from Dutch) meaning 'a gesture of derision; an expression of scorn or contempt'. In recent years the word has been increasingly applied to a person who is obsessed with computers and computer technology, and in the United States, especially in the compound alpha geek (the person you turn to for help when having problems with your computer), it is losing some of its negative connotations. In Australia, however, there is another meaning of the word geek. It means 'a look', and usually appears in the phrase to have (or take) a geek at. It is also used as a verb. This Australian sense derives from British dialect geek meaning 'to peep, peer; spy; to look at intently'. The Australian National Dictionary includes the following citations:
Back to Index of Australian Words gilgaiGilgai is an Australian word which describes a terrain of low relief on a plain of heavy clay soil, characterised by the presence of hollows, rims, and mounds, as formed by alternating periods of expansion during wet weather and contraction (with deep cracking) during hot, dry weather. This type of terrain is described as gilgaed. A single hole is known as a gilgai, or gilgai hole. Such holes are also known as crab-holes, dead-men's graves, or melon holes. The word is a borrowing from Wiradhuri (an Aboriginal language once spoken over a vast area from southern New South Wales to northern Victoria) and Kamilaroi (an Aboriginal language spoken over a vast area of east-central New South Wales and extending into southern Queensland) gilgaay 'waterhole'. Back to Index of Australian Words glory boxA young woman’s collection of household items, such as linen, which she is setting aside for her marriage. In other countries it is called a hope chest or bottom drawer. Glory box is probably related to British dialect glory hole 'a place for storing odds and ends’. First recorded 1915. Back to Index of Australian Words goog: full as a googExtremely drunk, or unable to eat any more because you are full. Goog, abbreviated from googie, comes from Scots goggie, a child’s word for egg. It is a variation on an earlier Australian phrase in the same sense: full as a tick. Later combinations include full as a boot, full as a Bourke Street tram, full as a bull’s bum. Back to Index of Australian Words green banA trade union ban on demolition or construction projects on sites deemed to be of historical, cultural or environmental significance. The term arose by analogy with ‘black ban’, with the colour green being associated with the environmental lobby in West Germany in the early 1970s. Although green ban is used elsewhere, the term was recorded first in Australia in 1973. Back to Index of Australian Words grey nomad:A retired person who travels extensively within Australia, esp. by campervan, caravan or motor home. Grey nomads generally travel with no particular schedule or date to return to their normal place of residence. ‘They’re back —thousands of them—trailing their Jaycos and Sunliners across the Tweed to squander their kids' inheritance on a fold-up chair next to a breezy Queensland beach. The grey nomad is now a feature of the natural world, like the movement of whales whose path they shadow up and down the east coast every winter.’ (Courier-Mail 19 July 2005). The grey nomad is a product of the Baby Boomer generation. The term was first recorded 1995. Back to Index of Australian Words guernseyGuernsey is the second largest of the Channel Islands. The name is used attributively to designate things found in or associated with Guernsey. Thus the term Guernsey cow for an animal of a breed of usually brown and white dairy cattle that originated in Guernsey. In the early nineteenth century the term Guernsey shirt arose for `a close-fitting woollen sweater, especially one worn by sailors'. During the gold rushes in Australia in the mid nineteenth century, in a specialisation of this sense, the term guernsey was used to describe a kind of shirt worn by gold-miners:
In a further specialisation in Australian English, the term guernsey was used to refer to a football jumper, especially as worn by a player of Australian Rules football:
From the football meaning there arose the phrase to get a guernsey or be given a guernsey, meaning to win selection for a sporting team. In a widening of this sense, the phrase came to mean 'to win selection, recognition, approbation', and is commonly used in non-sporting contexts:
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