‘to drink with the flies’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1898—to drink by oneself in a public house, which is regarded as an unsociable attitude—the image is that the solitary drinker has no other companions than the flies
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‘the Emmaville Express’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1976—nickname of Australian sprinter Debbie Wells (born 1961), who is from Emmaville, in New South Wales—alludes jocularly to ‘express (train)’, denoting a train that stops at few stations and travels quickly
Read Morehistory of ‘Emma Chisit’ and ‘Strine’
Australia, 1964—‘Emma Chisit’: ‘how much is it?’ (allegedly coined by English author Monica Dickens, who reportedly misunderstood the question posed by an Australian)—‘Strine’: Australian pronunciation of ‘Australian’ (coined by Australian author Alistair Morrison)
Read More‘coconut (black)’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1981—used by some Aborigines of those who are considered to have betrayed their Aboriginal identity in order to be accepted into the white Australian society—the image is that (like the coconut, dark on the outside, but white on the inside) those Aboriginal ‘betrayers’ are outwardly black, but inwardly white
Read More‘nanny state’: meanings and origins
the government or its policies viewed as overprotective or as interfering unduly with personal choice; a state characterised as having such a government—first coined in 1952 by U.S. journalist Dorothy Thompson—recoined in 1965 by British politician Iain Macleod
Read More‘in more trouble than Speed Gordon’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1938—beset with extraordinary difficulties—refers to Speed Gordon, the Australian name of Flash Gordon, the hero of the eponymous space-opera comic strip first published in 1934
Read More‘jump up whitefellow’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1830—refers to the Aboriginal belief that light-skinned persons are reincarnations of dead Aborigines—extended forms: ‘jump up white fellow, plenty of sixpence’ and ‘go down blackfellow and jump up whitefellow’
Read More‘things are crook in Tallarook’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1941—used of any adverse situation—based on the rhyme between ‘crook’ (meaning ‘bad’, ‘unpleasant’, ‘unsatisfactory’) and ‘Tallarook’, the name of a town in Victoria—sometimes followed by ‘there’s no work in Bourke’
Read More‘underground mutton’: meanings and origin
Australia, 1900: rabbit meat—later also: rabbits—‘mutton’, denoting a choice meat, was derisively substituted for ‘rabbit’, denoting the inferior meat that had to be eaten when butcher’s meat was too costly
Read More‘to apply the blowtorch to somebody’s belly’: meaning and origin
Australia—to test somebody’s fortitude; to put pressure on somebody—coined in 1983 by Neville Wran, Premier of New South Wales, to characterise the inexperience of Nick Greiner, the newly elected Leader of the Opposition
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