‘a hatful of arseholes’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1957, as ‘a hatful of bronzas’—used in similes expressing notions such as ugliness and silliness
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‘(as) full as a Bourke-Street tram’: meaning and origin
drunk—Australia, 1983—refers to Bourke Street, one of the main streets in the centre of Melbourne, Victoria—in Australian English, the adjective ‘full’ is used in various phrases referring to drunkenness
Read More‘hot-arsed’: meaning and origin
slang—(used especially of women) lustful; sexually aroused or arousing—first recorded in The Confession of the New Married Couple (London, 1683)
Read More‘a long streak of pelican shit’: meaning and origin
a tall person—Australia, 1968, in the stage play Norm and Ahmed, by Alexander Buzo—gained currency from occurring in the film Gallipoli (1981), scripted by David Williamson
Read More‘to bang like a dunny door’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia—also ‘to bang like a shithouse door’—used of an exceptional sexual partner—plays on two meanings of the verb ‘bang’: ‘to make a loud noise’ and ‘to have sexual intercourse’
Read More‘may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down’
Australia, 1972—a jocular curse—the Australian National Dictionary Centre explains that this phrase “recalls an earlier time when many Australians kept chooks (domestic chickens) in the backyard and the dunny was a separate outhouse”
Read Morethe noun ‘dunny’ in Australian phrases
The noun ‘dunny’ denotes a toilet, especially an outside toilet. This noun has been used in various phrases expressing notions such as conspicuousness, loneliness, ill luck, etc.
Read More‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’ and variants
The proverbial phrase ‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’, and its many variants, are used of a person who is characterised by bad luck or by an inability to be organised or prepared.
Read More‘Red Sea pedestrian’: meaning and origin
UK, 1912—humorous: a Jewish person—refers to the Crossing of the Red Sea, as recounted in the Book of Exodus—coined on various occasions by different persons, independently from each other
Read More‘as busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs’ and other colourful phrases
There have been, since the early 20th century a number of colourful variants of the U.S. phrase ‘as busy as a one-armed paperhanger’—for example, in Australian English, ‘as busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs’ and ‘as busy as a brickie in Beirut’.
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