This is not a furphy
July 3, 2017 10:40 PM   Subscribe

OK so it doesn't know what a blue-nosed gopher is and it's slow as buggery (I guess it's has to travel across the country via the singing string) but this is not a furphy: Access to the Australian National Dictionary online is free now thanks to OUP. Previously.
posted by toycamera (28 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Nice!

Furphy and rort are two words I learned when I moved to Australia that are among the few that Australians don't really think of as regional or slang: they generally assume all English speakers use them. Most Australians are aware of how other terms are local or slangy, when it comes to things like esky or servo, arvo, mate, etc, but there seems to be a blind spot around those two.

Also, the preposition in "to eye something". In NZ English, if you are coveting someone else's food, for example, you might say you were " eyeing it up ". In Australian English it's generally " eyeing it off ". In NZ that's only used for people who are eyeing each other off before fighting, i think. Aussies never believe me that that one is non standard.

(You're non-standard. No, you're non-standard)

Now I'll be able to prove it without a subscription. Hooray!
posted by lollusc at 11:02 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


I can't imagine how an American would say 'rort' and imagining an English person saying it gives me the giggles. For the record the Australian pronunciation is as in 'ought' but with a twang, mate.
posted by toycamera at 11:08 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also the AND dictionary people used to be colleagues of mine. They are most excellent scholars and human beings, and usually donate lots of free dictionaries as prizes for high schoolers who probably don't appreciate them as much as they should.
posted by lollusc at 11:14 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Is there a better link? I can find a statement on the linked page that they are providing access to the first edition but can't actually find that access.

I hope it covers rhyming slang, I fear it's dying slowly. Many of my age don't understand me when I say I'm pretty Hank but on the frog and toad on the way to a feed. We need to bring it back.
posted by deadwax at 12:02 AM on July 4, 2017


Bonza.

It's ripper to see this shared with the rest of you drongos. Mind you, we'd be devo if any seppos eyeing this up start bludging off the hard yakka that our battlers have put into our great cultural heritage. We're not beyond sooling a pack of dingos on any soft sooks who whinge about 'coarse vulgarity', either. Clarity and expressiveness is what it is.

So, grab a slab and crack open a few tinnies and join us in saying 'onya, mate' to the AND team.
posted by Combat Wombat at 12:06 AM on July 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


@deadwax here you go http://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/index.php cobber.
posted by toycamera at 12:29 AM on July 4, 2017


IIRC 'furphy' derives from the water tanks used to water troops, so it's a nice parallel to 'scuttlebutt'.
posted by pompomtom at 12:31 AM on July 4, 2017


I used "ropeable" in conversation the other day, not realising that it's non-standard English. (It was met with many confused looks, including from other native English speakers)
(Australian living in Vietnam)
posted by a very present absence at 1:04 AM on July 4, 2017 [4 favorites]


Count me in as an Australian surprised that 'rort' is not in wider use. It's such a useful word.
posted by Merus at 1:04 AM on July 4, 2017 [7 favorites]


I'm mostly surprised it's an Australianism because it's always connected to "tort" in my mind.
posted by solarion at 1:58 AM on July 4, 2017


Shemozzle isn't in there. Am I misremembering it as an Australianism for an uncoordinated and unsuccessful activity?
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:56 AM on July 4, 2017


join us in saying 'onya, mate' to the AND team.

I know a guy who moved here from overseas (Israel, maybe?) and said he spent the whole first year thinking that a way to praise someone in Australian English was to call them a "good onion". He thought that was the Australian counterpart to the British "good egg".

Because people kept going around saying, "Good onion, mate."
posted by lollusc at 4:11 AM on July 4, 2017 [11 favorites]


Shemozzle isn't in there. Am I misremembering it as an Australianism for an uncoordinated and unsuccessful activity?

Apparently Yiddish, though the Collins definition is slightly different to the Australian usage
posted by Gwendoline Mary at 4:31 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Barry Humphries on the new dictionaries (and Australian slang). Sample sentence: "She's got norks on her like a pair of Mudgee mail bags".
posted by Paul Slade at 4:40 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Rort is the only word that I know is not accepted in either scrabble dictionary, but obstinately try to play anyway and get irritated when it gets rejected. It is such a useful word! Makes me ropeable!
posted by arha at 5:00 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow, rort is slang?! Huh.

I'm surprised at how many words I had assumed were Australian slang aren't in there. Wag (school), Jolly (trip), Yobbo, or Loaf (head), which is the only example of rhyming slang I've ever heard in the wild. Also, the most common definition of Bogan doesn't seem to be there. I did find out how to spell Schungies though, and am feeling vindicated about my completely appropriate use of the word Fang a few months ago, which made my my housemate look at me quizzically. But we did grow up on opposite sides of Australia though, so perhaps there's a regional aspect.
posted by kjs4 at 6:02 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


How could anything purporting to be a reference work on the Australian language possibly be missing "budgie smugglers"?
posted by flabdablet at 6:37 AM on July 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


IIRC 'furphy' derives from the water tanks used to water troops, so it's a nice parallel to 'scuttlebutt'.

As I understand it this is contested, but was 'kn stoked a few weeks ago to see a Furphy brand water tanker "in the wild" - next to where my daughter was playing netball. I took a snap and all.
posted by hawthorne at 7:07 AM on July 4, 2017


I'm pretty sure 'chockers' counts as Dimwell rhyming slang, in that it means 'overcrowded' or 'full' and the full phrase is 'chock-a-block' which does not actually rhyme with 'full'.

There's still a bit of Australian rhyming slang, it's just that we've forgotten there's a rhyme associated with it. I've heard 'porkies' in use and I did one hear someone use 'me old china' in the wild.
posted by Merus at 7:46 AM on July 4, 2017


the full phrase is 'chock-a-block'

I've never lived anywhere but America, and the phrase "chock-full" is fairly common. FWIW.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:08 AM on July 4, 2017


Some Furphy information from the National Museum: features one of the most mellifluous Australian place names, "Puckapunyal".
posted by michaelhoney at 1:49 PM on July 4, 2017


I don't know what a blue-nosed gopher is either.
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:47 PM on July 4, 2017


Wait, rort is a slang word?! /echoes others

I probably shouldn't have called it slang, exactly. It's regional. It's not standard English. But it's not really slang because it appears here in newspapers and other relatively formal contexts. But it is definitely Australian dialect rather than more generally known.
posted by lollusc at 5:07 AM on July 5, 2017


The craziest thing about furphies is that people collect them. I know someone who has a collection of the ends, much to his wife's despair. They weigh a tonne, and are utterly useless. They are in demand though, a tank sold for $26,000 earlier this year.
posted by kjs4 at 6:56 AM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


It should be noted that the version made available online is the First Edition published in 1988, so is understandably lacking some words, albeit some surprising ones. In between mandatory morning tea breaks and the production of other Oxford Australian Dictionary products, the dictionary centre published the second edition in 2016, with 16,000 headwords now included in contrast to the 10,000 in the first edition. The second edition added such essential words as:
ambo, barbecue stopper, bogan, budgie smugglers, bunny rug, captain's pick, chiko roll, chook lit, chroming, copha, corkie, couldn't run a chook raffle, do a Bradbury, drop bear, fairy bread, firie, goon bag, grommet, hip-pocket nerve, hornbag, humidicrib, karak, land of the fair go, marn grook, negative gearing, not happy Jan, pizzling, reg grundies, schmick, schoolies' week, seachanger, secret women's business, shirt-front, skippy, songline, spunk rat, trackie daks, ute muster, welcome to country
There's also no doubt that there's more comprehensive research associated with the words already present in the first edition, especially with the increased availability of digitised source material, in addition to Bruce Moore's scholarship. Having the first edition available online is appreciated, and certainly better than nothing, but it's obviously not very authoritative or a substitute for the second edition.
posted by bunyip at 5:46 PM on July 5, 2017


Probably good they left out "bogan". The definition would want revision since 1988.
posted by pompomtom at 8:57 PM on July 5, 2017


turbid dahlia : well i'll be a blue-nosed gopher! i thought everyone knew what a blue nosed gopher is...
posted by toycamera at 6:51 AM on July 8, 2017


bunyip : bugger. what a rort!
posted by toycamera at 3:04 AM on July 9, 2017


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