Australian uses of ‘two-bob watch’
1910: a cheap and common watch—hence (from 1922 onwards) used in various phrases referring to silliness, reliability/unreliability, erraticism, cheapness, funniness
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Australian uses of ‘heifer-paddock’
literally (1845): an enclosure in which calves are isolated from their mothers until weaned—figuratively, humorously and offensively (1885): a girls’ boarding-school—similar to the use of ‘cow’ to derogatorily designate a girl or woman
Read More‘hell, west and crooked’: meaning and origin
USA, 1867—all over the place, in disarray—perhaps originally used by cattlemen of mobs of cattle all over the place
Read More‘fang’—as used in reference to high speed
Australia, 1970—as a noun and as a verb, refers to a high-speed drive in a motor vehicle—from the surname of the Argentinian motor-racing driver Juan Manuel Fangio
Read More‘to do the block’: meaning and origin
Australia—‘the block’: a street or area in a city or town in which it is fashionable to promenade—‘to do the block’: to promenade in such a street or area—1868, in reference to a section of Collins Street in Melbourne
Read More‘Billjim’: meanings and origin
Australia—1897: the typical bushman—1915: the typical Australian private soldier—a blend of the male forenames ‘Bill’ and ‘Jim’, as often used of bushmen
Read MoreAustralian use of ‘big spit’
1943: the noun ‘big spit’ designates ‘vomiting’—1952: the phrase ‘to go for the big spit’ means ‘to vomit’
Read More‘Marie Celeste’: meanings and origin
is used of a place that is found inexplicably deserted; also of a person’s sudden and inexplicable disappearance—alludes to the Mary Celeste, a U.S. cargo ship which in December 1872 was found mysteriously abandoned in the North Atlantic
Read Morenotes on the phrase ‘life was not meant to be easy’—as used in Australia
1969—associated with Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983, who borrowed it from George Bernard Shaw’s Back to Methuselah (1921)
Read More‘guzinter’: meanings and origin
1910—a humorous phonetic transcription of the phrase “goes into”, as originally used at school in arithmetic lessons (as in “4 guzinter 8 two times”)—hence, by extension: a schoolteacher
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