New dictionary demystifies Australian regional word use

By GREG TOURELLE in SYDNEY

When I was a youngster growing up in Southland, we spent our holidays in a crib. And a ba(t)ch was a group of great scones, smothered in cream and jam.

Cribs were most commonly used at the beachside, but even though we had our holidays inland, at Alexandra in Central Otago, we still called the holiday house a crib.

As children, we learned that North Islanders had their holidays in baches. They might have swept their baches, but they vacuumed their homes. We luxed. Or rather, mum did.

The words are regionalisms. In some parts of Australia, a crib is known as a meal during a work shift. It is a mining industry term, most commonly used in Western Australia.

It is also commonly used by coalminers in New Zealand.

The just-published Macquarie ABC Dictionary provides a comprehensive list of Australian regionalisms.

The contributors were wide and varied - 6170 in all, because people could just volunteer words on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Word Map website.

Once a word was entered, other people could volunteer opinions as to its origin and use.

So the original proposition that crib was a bag used to contain one's lunch was quickly pooh-poohed.

A follow-up contributor said it was a mining industry term.

"If a miner was to work eight hours, say from 8am until 4pm, there was no time for a meal break, so the miner had to 'crib' some of the company's time."

This led to the term "crib time", for the period during which the meal was eaten. The meal became known as a "crib" and the place where it is eaten is still known as a "crib room" or "crib house".

Another said this meaning came from the Cornish dialect.

Its original meaning was a barred receptacle for fodder, but it also has meanings as a baby's bed, a hovel, the New Zealand meaning of a holiday house, a bin used in hop-picking and plenty of others to boot.

Sue Butler, one of the dictionary's editors, said Australian regionalisms went back to European settlement and were part of a spoken language filtered out of written English.

"By the end of the 1800s, communication between cities and constant travel around the country had evened out a lot of the differences between regions," she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

But differences remained. The good old sandwich in parts of Victoria is called a piece, but in areas of South Australia it is a schnitter.

In some places it is called a sanger, the term many use for a sausage.

Speaking of sausage, back in Southland we ate belgium in our sammies. We gradually became aware that places north referred to the same filling as luncheon sausage.

Australians refer to it as belgium sausage and luncheon sausage, but also byron sausage, empire sausage, devon, fritz, german sausage, polony, strasburg and windsor sausage.

There are some bonzer words in the dictionary that are just corker.

A muckadilla is a messy, disorganised person, a bumzack is a cadger of drinks, boonted is messed up or broken, and then there is the doomie ...

A doomie is someone who lives in public housing, permanently unemployed, with fag in mouth and bad haircut, who wears flannos (flannel shirts) and black jeans and coming from the central New South Wales coast, does not wear a flogger, which in Perth is a woollen jumper or sweater.

Or jersey.

Doomies are so named because they never change: they are doomed to live that way forever.

Ms Butler said the most famous Australian regionalisms were in a constant state of ebb and flow.

"Words like ridgy-didge, fair dinkum and mate were dropped in cities a few years ago because people thought they were markers of being a country backwater ...

"Meanwhile, country people maintained them proudly. Later, though, a younger generation in the cities adopted them again in an ironic style."

Mate certainly didn't drop out of rugby league at any stage.

It and fair dinkum don't appear on the Word Map site, but maa? does.

In the Hunter Valley and NSW north coast, "maa?", accompanied by a flick of the head, means "howyer goin, mate?"

We'll end on a somewhat offensive note. New Zealand visitors for the World Cup be warned. In some Australian cafes people will say they are having a snot block.

Others might request a snot brick or a pus pie. They are referring to the humble vanilla slice.

New Zealanders are beyond such crudities. A custard square is a custard square. Isn't it?

Australian

Muckadilla: a messy, disorganised person.

Bumzack: a cadger of drinks.

Boonted: messed up or broken.

Doomie: Someone who lives in public housing, permanently unemployed, with fag in mouth and bad haircut.

- NZPA