Up a wombat’s freckle
June 24, 2017 3:11 PM   Subscribe

Barry Humphries reviews the second edition of the Australian National Dictionary. "The reader should be warned that there are one or two colloquialisms in this review."
posted by Bigbrowncow (6 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
"The English have twenty-five ways of saying “sorry” and they don’t mean one of them." "especially in Sydney where few pillows go unbitten." This is a goldmine.
posted by Oyéah at 5:28 PM on June 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


That was a fair dinkum article. Real bonzer!

(Sadly I knew those terms before the article. I like to collect and utilize odd slang.)
posted by Samizdata at 5:34 PM on June 24, 2017


Not to suggest that he's not a treasure as-is, but you all know as well as I do that whenever he comes up, the curse of Barry Humphries obligates us to refer at least obliquely to a certain honorable personage lest we be cursed ourselves.

With that out of the way: "Pillow biter" really only goes back to the seventies?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:11 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Featuring a fair few Barry Humphries in this exposé of Life in Kangaroo Valley (Earls Court Road, London): Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) Trailer
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:10 AM on June 25, 2017


Cartoonist Jon Kudelka on the "mate" issue (context: there has been a recent kerfuffle in Australian politics about ramping up English requirements for new citizens - the cartoon depicts bigot-guddling ambitious Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton and glide path Opposition Leader Bill Shorten).
posted by hawthorne at 7:01 AM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


How interesting! I'm glad to see the dictionary has an entry (and has done for a long time, it seems) for the "wait-a-while" plants I encountered in the forest.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:32 PM on June 25, 2017


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