In Australian and New-Zealand English, the noun pannikin—which denotes a small pan or drinking vessel—has been used figuratively in the sense of the head in the dated slang phrase off one’s pannikin, meaning: off one’s head, out of one’s wits, crazy.
This phrase occurred, for example, in the following from a correspondence from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, by Frank G. Carpenter, published in The Semi-Weekly Times-Democrat (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) of Friday 19th July 1901:
I am surprised at the amount of slang used among these English people south of the equator. The Australians have more slang phrases than the Americans. […]
[…] We use the expressions “on the jump or on the go”; the Australian says he is “on the wallaby.” When a man acts foolishly we sometimes say “he is off his base”; with the Australian “he is off his pannikin.”
The earliest occurrences of the phrase off one’s pannikin that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From Cruise of the Waimponbolongo, by ‘a Bohemian’, published in the Cootamundra Herald. Murrumburrah, Bethungra, and Bland Districts Advertiser (Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 11th October 1879:
“When he [i.e., Dick] was on a spree he never let anything with a mouth on it pass without a booze. Why, I recollects once at the Dead Finish a kangaroo hops past the door of the crib, and Dick, he hails him; and would you believe it, he was off his pannikin for two hours ’cause the blowed marsupial wouldn’t come in and have a friendly wet.”
2-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up News in Brief, published in the Weekly Times, and Town & Country Journal (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Saturday 23rd April 1881:
Because the Chewton minister disapproves of picnicking on Good Friday, an irate and impudent “churchman” asserts in the Castlemaine Representative that the clergyman must have “gone off his pannikin.” Melbourne has not the entire monopoly in the manufacture of colonial slang.
3-: From Tom Lister’s Luck. A Story of Two Christmas Eves, by ‘Scrib’, published in The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, South Australia, Australia) of Saturday 24th December 1881:
“I goes up to him at the slip-panel just at sundown, a time back, and asks him the usual question, could he give me a job?
“‘I s’pose you want a shakedown and some supper?’ says Jacky.
“‘Yes, but I’d like a job all the same,’ says I. But I didn’t much care about one, mates.
“‘Oh! I’ll give you a job fast enough,’ says Jacky. ‘D’ye see that gate,’ pointing to the paddock gate.
“‘In course I does,’ says I.
“‘Then go and swing on it till I tell you to stop,’ says he.
“I thought he’d gone off his pannikin (head), but I went and did as he told me.”
4-: From the account of a dispute between Robert Barbour (1827-1895), a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, and the Deniliquin Municipal Council, published in the Pastoral Times (Deniliquin, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 30th December 1882:
Mr Barbour had seen it as an affront from the Council. The Council, however, had nothing to do with it, and the aldermen individually repudated [sic] any connection with it. Alderman Edwards thought Mr Barbour was “off his pannikin” since he had gone into Parliament.
5-: From The Port Augusta Dispatch and Flinders Advertiser (Port Augusta, South Australia, Australia) of Wednesday 24th January 1883:
“Rambler” in the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, has the following characteristic anecdote of the proprietor of the Creme de la Boosie vintage:—“This is a positive fact, communicated privately from Melbourne, and goes to show that true genius in [sic] never at a loss. Dr. L. L. Smith sent a dozen of champagne to the rabid teetotaller, Munro: who was so enraged that he smashed the bottles at one fell swoop, and sent them back to the donor. Now L. L. has got out a newspaper paragraph announcing that Mr. James Munro, M.L.A., thought so much of the merits of the L. L. & Co.’s champagne that he opened twelve quart bottles at one sitting. Jimmy Munro is going ‘off his pannikin’ over this astounding slip up: and the champagne is going off, too.”
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