Gold! Gold! Gold! is the title of Bruce Moore's book which has just been published by Oxford University Press. The gold rushes of the nineteenth century, especially those of the 1850s, were a crucial defining point in Australian history, bringing with them far-reaching social and economic changes. They also brought with them a new language. In 1851 one newspaper reported: The excitement in Sydney continues to increase. A glance at the advertising columns of the newspapers will give you a little idea of the universal mania. 'Gold, gold, gold' is the standing head of every shopkeeper's advertisement. Here was a new linguistic world of cradles, long toms, and puddling machines; of cockatoo rushes, dodgers' rushes, and storekeepers' rushes; of grog-shanties, sly-grog tents, and tippling booths; of bottoms, second bottoms, and false bottoms; of shicers, duffers, and blanks; of bushrangers, Pentonvillains, and Vandemonians; of hatters, night fossickers, and shepherds; of gold fever, gold mania, and yellow fever; of cradlers, puddlers, and sluicers. The language of gold is the subject of this book. It takes the form of a dictionary, with detailed supporting quotations from contemporary texts. The quotations have been chosen not only for the historical information they provide, but also for their readability, for the ways in which they evoke the living pulse of the golden era. All that glisters, said Shakespeare, is not gold. This book glisters but it is not pyritic. It is a nugget of exceptional value.
Frederick Ludowyk
Editor, Ozwords