tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/australian-language-34576/articlesAustralian language – The Conversation2021-03-03T19:06:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1553662021-03-03T19:06:11Z2021-03-03T19:06:11ZYouse wouldn’t believe it: a new book charts the 11-year making of a ‘people’s dictionary’ for Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387104/original/file-20210301-23-scndmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even the dictionary entry defining lamingtons proved controversial ...</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: More Than Words: The Making of the Macquarie Dictionary by Pat Manser (Pan Macmillan)</em></p>
<p>In 1973 Pat Manser answered an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald seeking a research assistant to work on phonetic transcriptions for a dictionary of Australian English.</p>
<p>Now, nearly 50 years later, she has published <a href="https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/791/">her monumental account of the making of this dictionary</a>, which in the words of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Keneally">Thomas Keneally</a>, “paid the Antipodean tongue the great compliment of taking it seriously”.</p>
<p>If you’re a word aficionado, you’ll love this book. I could not put it down until I had read through to the end of the final section, which contains the wonderful launch presentation speeches for all eight editions of the Macquarie Dictionary.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gogglebox-and-what-it-tells-us-about-english-in-australia-75295">Gogglebox and what it tells us about English in Australia</a>
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<h2>The beginnings</h2>
<p>John Bernard, a chemist who was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of English and Linguistics at Macquarie University in 1966, had published a paper in Southerly in June 1962 about the need for a dictionary of Australian English. He argued that we need </p>
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<p>a dictionary of our own because our idiom, usage, invention and especially pronunciation are sufficiently different from those of other Englishes.</p>
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<p>In December 1969, Brian Clouston, who had founded Jacaranda Press in Brisbane, agreed to fund a dictionary that would be </p>
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<p>aggressively Australian, not to be encyclopedic, not to be illustrated, to be in one volume, and to be ready in two years.</p>
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<p>Bernard’s colleague at the university, Professor Arthur Delbridge, was appointed chair of the editorial committee to compile the book. He argued for a “people’s dictionary” that would “hold up a mirror directly to contemporary Australian speech and writing”. </p>
<p>The critical decision at the outset was whether to describe how people use the language or prescribe how people should use the language. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387100/original/file-20210301-13-f0hbhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Should the new dictionary describe how language was used or prescribe its use?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>The father of English lexicography, Samuel Johnson, whose prescriptivist <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/samuel-johnsons-a-dictionary-of-the-english-language-1755#">A Dictionary of the English Language</a> was published in 1755, felt “the duty of the lexicographer was to correct or proscribe”. The Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1928, had also been prescriptive. </p>
<p>However, the Macquarie editorial committee was “adamant that its dictionary was to be descriptive”, a move now standard in English language dictionaries. The committee wanted as comprehensive a dictionary as possible, so spoken as well as written words were included.</p>
<p>Johnson’s dictionary took seven years to compile. The Oxford dictionary took 70 years. Rather than two, Macquarie’s dictionary took 11 years.</p>
<p>The Macquarie lexicographers had started work in 1970; the first edition was published in 1981. The 8th edition, published in 2020, and its thesaurus contain more than 300,000 Australian words and definitions.</p>
<p>It is no surprise there were controversies to contend with in the years it took to compile the first edition.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/togs-or-swimmers-why-australians-use-different-words-to-describe-the-same-things-52007">Togs or swimmers? Why Australians use different words to describe the same things</a>
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<h2>Controversies</h2>
<p>The test for inclusion of words and expressions is currency. How often do you hear people say, “I’ll see youse later”? That particular Australianism is included in the dictionary because, as an entry explains: </p>
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<p>English <em>you</em> does not distinguish singular from plural. The form <em>youse</em> does provide a plural, contrasting with singular <em>you</em>, but there is strong resistance to it, in spoken as well as written language, and it remains non-standard.</p>
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<p>Other tests include whether a word is accepted by the language community, whether it’s used extensively, or whether it’s too individual or specialised. Is it likely to stand the test of time? Is the entry well supported by citations?</p>
<p>Language is forever changing, so the challenge for a dictionary is its capacity to remain up to date. Manser amusingly illustrates the growing acceptance of “literally” to be understood as “figuratively” with a quote from Amanda Vanstone: </p>
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<p>But I can assure you that we are literally bending over backwards to take into account the concerns raised by colleagues. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387105/original/file-20210301-15-e0ttki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Amanda Vanstone poses (literally) for a photograph for Australian Women’s Weekly in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Bauer/AAP</span></span>
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<p>As the recipient of elocution lessons in my early education I was fascinated to learn about the dictionary’s engagement with spoken English pronunciation. Then there is the fraught question of the description of iconic foods. Should Lamingtons be dipped only in thin chocolate icing and coconut? Not necessarily. There are pink jelly lamingtons and, more recently, Tokyo lamingtons, which have apparently landed with flavours of matcha and black sesame.</p>
<p>Manser’s <a href="https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/780/">least favourite word </a> is mansplain, Word of the year in 2014. She hoped it would be ephemeral … but it was recently just nudged out by “fake news” for word of the decade.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-horror-and-pleasure-of-misused-words-from-mispronunciation-to-malapropisms-86323">The horror and pleasure of misused words: from mispronunciation to malapropisms</a>
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<h2>A cocktail</h2>
<p>The dictionary was launched on 21 September 1981 as The Macquarie Dictionary because it would “add prestige to the dictionary to be associated with a university”, as the Oxford one was.</p>
<p>A special cocktail, the Macquarie, was created to mark the occasion: “Champagne, mango juice, Bitters, Grand Marnier, and a whole strawberry to float on the top”.</p>
<p>The reviews were glowing, except for one condescending and scathing review by the editor of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Robert Burchfield, a New Zealander, accused the committee of a “charming unawareness of the standards of reputable lexicography outside Australia”.</p>
<p>The new dictionary sold very well: 50,000 copies in its first year and another 50,000 copies over the next 18 months. Within ten years there were 23 spin off editions. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387107/original/file-20210301-19-s64927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Malcolm Turnbull avails himself of a dictionary in 2008 during parliamentary question time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Currently, there are more than 150 spin offs. There was even a Macquarie Bedtime Story Book for Children. There are, of course, other dictionaries of Australian English, such as Oxford University Press’s <a href="https://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/">Australian National Dictionary</a>, a dictionary of Australianisms first published in 1988. There was also an Australian version of the Collins British English Dictionary, which the Macquarie staff regarded as essentially British.</p>
<p>In 1976, the Macquarie offices moved to a former market gardener’s cottage on the campus of Macquarie University. Called “the cottage”, it sounds reminiscent of James Murray’s <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=Murray%27s+Oxford+Scriptorium&form=WNSGPH&qs=SW&cvid=9c83bf5eb3b745f6b9cf2290afacdca9&pq=Murray%27s+Oxford+Scriptorium&cc=AU&setlang=en-US&PC=HCTS&nclid=E4886C8234AC257DC688709C38C61949&ts=1614633840156&elv=AY3%21uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfPZDm2RgAwLvllpc2FRnRm%21%21GkU35RdB0NWL5CGNkV4c*%21IO8M%21fr4vWFDvUX8oYUFBHkPD6fNkcDd1htxY0KeI&wsso=Moderate">scriptorium in Oxford</a>, where he oversaw the creation of The Oxford English Dictionary. In 1980, Macquarie Library Pty Ltd became the publisher and has held the copyright ever since, though Macmillan bought the dictionary in 2001. </p>
<p>Macquarie embraced Indigenous Australian issues with <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760786977/#:%7E:text=Macquarie%20Aboriginal%20Words%20is%20a,and%20Yindjibarndi%20from%20Western%20Australia.">Macquarie Aboriginal Words</a> in 1994 and the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia in 2005. As Ernie Dingo put it at the time: “This book is a White step in the Black direction”.</p>
<p>Manser, who went on to become a high-level public servant, has done painstakingly detailed research for this book, with great support from former colleagues.
It is well written in short chapters. I would have liked to see an index and a time-line, but I hesitate to quibble in the face of such a splendid historical document.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roslyn Petelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It would be ‘aggressively Australian’, holding a mirror up to contemporary society. The creation of the first Macquarie Dictionary, while not without controversies, was a cultural milestone.Roslyn Petelin, Course coordinator, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1214922019-09-22T20:12:57Z2019-09-22T20:12:57ZHow Australians talk about tucker is a story that’ll make you want to eat the bum out of an elephant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293441/original/file-20190921-135128-1ijl899.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C59%2C3868%2C1904&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Not to put a <em>damper</em> on things, but Australian food hasn’t always made us <em>happy little Vegemites</em>.</p>
<p>One needn’t look further than the humble <em>meat pie</em> to see how our love/hate relationship with <em>Aussie tucker</em> has evolved. In the early 20th century, the <em>dog’s eye</em> was just a cheap staple on our menus and was peddled by roaming <em>pie-carts</em>. </p>
<p>So low was the lowly <em>meat pie</em> that it became a pejorative term for second-rate boxers, racehorses and bookies. The Australian <em>meat pie western</em> took its place alongside the <em>spaghetti western</em> as a low-quality US cowboy flick not actually filmed in the US (the latter were filmed in Italy).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-would-anyone-shiver-their-timbers-heres-how-pirate-words-arrr-preserving-old-language-121493">Why would anyone shiver their timbers? Here’s how pirate words arrr preserving old language</a>
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<p>But Australians love an underdog, and things began to look up for the <em>meatie</em> from the second world war. When American soldiers arrived, their “Pocket Guide to Australia” <a href="http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/guide_5.htm#page20">noted</a> that meat pies were</p>
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<p>the Australian version of the hot dog.</p>
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<p>And since at least the 1970s, we’ve had the high mark of patriotism being <em>as Australian as a meat pie</em>.</p>
<p>Of course, <em>modern Australian</em> (<em>mod Oz</em>) cuisine is much more than meat pies and <em>steak and cake</em> (in the words of author Patrick White). So, we thought we’d play <em>babbler</em> (<em>babbling brook</em> “cook”) and cook up a tale of <em>Aussie tucker</em> and its words — a kind of degustation with gobbets of linguistic and culinary history. .</p>
<h2>Classy eating, bush tucker and the wallaby trail</h2>
<p>From the time of settlement, Australian eating was a story of <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25573392?q&versionId=30807002+44899503+220283743+250947474">haves and have nots</a>.</p>
<p>The first Australian cookbook was released in 1864 under the title <em>An Australian Aristologist</em>. The aristologist was the <em>foodie</em> of the 19th century, but the word never took off, pushed out by others like <em>gourmet</em> — French has always given the dining experience a certain <em>je ne sais quoi</em>.</p>
<p>The Australian Aristologist (prominent Tasmanian, Edward Abbott) <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/one-continuous-picnic-paperback-softback">extolled</a> the virtues of herb gardens, yeast and 30 or so types of bread, but his privilege led him to largely ignore the core staple of many everyday Australians —<em>damper</em>.</p>
<p>This simple, unleavened bread baked in ashes comprised (along with <em>tea</em> and <em>mutton</em>) <em>the bushman’s dinner</em>. It was the linguistic offspring of the original British <em>damper</em> “anything that took the edge off an appetite” with a verbal twist (<em>to damp down</em> “cover a fire with coal or ashes to keep it burning slowly”).</p>
<p>Life <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9696744?q&sort=holdings+desc&_=1567234845315&versionId=12640685">could be rough</a> for the bushman and the itinerant worker. Those lucky enough <em>to make tucker</em> (“earn enough to eat”) might <em>tuck in to</em> (“eat”) some <em>banjo</em> (“a shoulder of mutton”), <em>the Old thing</em> (“damper and mutton”) or <em>the bushman’s hot dinner</em> (“damper and mustard”). Those less lucky might be reduced to their <em>billy</em>, <em>a duck’s breakfast</em> (“water”) and <em>the wallaby trail</em> (“the search for food or work”).</p>
<p>The bush diet could be quite <em>muttonous</em> (“sheep-based”), but meat-eating was fraught with gastronomic red herrings (John Ayto’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/A_Gourmet_s_Guide.html?id=mxqbMkntnLMC&redir_esc=y">term</a>). <em>Underground mutton</em> wasn’t mutton, but rather “rabbit”. <em>Colonial goose</em> actually was mutton (“boned leg stuffed with sage & onions”) and so was <em>colonial duck</em> (“boned shoulder with sage and onions”). But <em>Burdekin duck</em> was neither duck nor mutton, but rather “sliced meat fried in batter”. And we reckon seafood fans best steer clear of <em>bush oysters</em> (“testicles”).</p>
<h2>Sausage wars and snake’s bum on a biscuit</h2>
<p>The Australian food lexicon is often driven by our relationships with one another and the world.</p>
<p>German migration, especially to South Australia, led to the <em>German sausage</em> or the <em>Fritz</em>. However, first world war anti-German sentiment <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/whats-their-story-9780195575002?cc=au&lang=en&">led</a> to attempts to relabel this sausage the <em>Austral</em>. Such renaming efforts were to no avail in South Australia, where <em>Fritz</em> remains <em>Fritz</em>, but were more successful elsewhere. </p>
<p>When the British Royal family changed their surname from <em>Saxe-Coburg-Gotha</em> to <em>Windsor</em> in 1917, Queenslanders followed suit and the <em>German sausage</em> became <em>the Windsor</em>.</p>
<p>Perhaps our most honest assessment of sausages (but also <em>snags</em>, <em>snaggles</em>, <em>snorks</em>, <em>snorkers</em>, <em>starvers</em>, <em>Hitler’s toe</em> in its many varieties) comes from Australian homes and housewives: <em>mystery bags</em>.</p>
<p>Nancy Keesing’s “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/26614054?selectedversion=NBD2337766">Lily on the Dustbin</a>” is a treasure trove of such food slang and metaphor among Australian women and families. Keesing highlights heaps of fun ways of expressing hunger:</p>
<p><em>I could eat a hollow log full of green ants.</em></p>
<p><em>I could eat a horse and chase the rider.</em></p>
<p><em>I could eat the bum out of an elephant.</em></p>
<p><em>I could eat a baby’s bottom through a can chair.</em></p>
<p>And there are equally fun and cheeky answers for that perennial question, “what’s for dinner?”:</p>
<p><em>Snake’s bum on a biscuit.</em></p>
<p><em>Wait and see pudding.</em></p>
<p><em>Standby pudding.</em></p>
<p><em>Open the dish and discover the riddle.</em></p>
<p>Though humorous, Keesing notes that many of these sayings have sombre origins in the Depression era, when dinner really might have been an unfolding mystery from day to day.</p>
<h2>Multiculturalism beyond the “culinary cringe”</h2>
<p>South Australian Premier Don Dunstan’s 1970s cookbook <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25573392?q&versionId=30807002+44899503+220283743+250947474">begins</a> with the following:</p>
<p><em>For the most part, before the Second World War, our cuisine reflected the decline into which the average English cook of the nineteenth century had sunk. After the war, the influence of migrant groups […] influenced Australian food habits for the better.</em></p>
<p>The delightfully named (and delightful) Australian food writer Cherry Ripe announced in the 1990s that we were saying <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Goodbye_Culinary_Cringe.html?id=PVXdHAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">goodbye to the <em>culinary cringe</em></a> – and ours was among the best food in the world.</p>
<p>Our acceptance of multicultural delights have played no small role in this.</p>
<p>For many years, Chinese and Greek pub cooks were relegated to cooking standard Australian fare (such as <em>steak and eggs</em>). But the <em>dim sim/dim sin</em> has long been a bellwether for the culinary delight to come. In fact, American servicemen in Australia during the second world war were informed in their “Pocket Guide to Australia” that the “<a href="http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/guide_5.htm#page20">dim sin</a>” was the Australian replacement for the hamburger.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oi-were-not-lazy-yarners-so-lets-kill-the-cringe-and-love-our-aussie-accent-s-111753">Oi! We're not lazy yarners, so let’s kill the cringe and love our Aussie accent(s)</a>
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<p>But since then, we’ve seen a proliferation of multicultural food items — our cook’s tour has barely scratched the surface. Lots of words are like <em>the cocky on the biscuit tin</em> (“left out”).</p>
<p>We’d love to tell you more about how the <em>chiko roll</em> evolved from observations that <em>chop suey rolls</em> kept falling out of footy fans’ hands. And we’d love to tell you how the lives of the bushmen might have been easier — if they had only taken to the delicacies offered by Australian Indigenous people.</p>
<p>But alas, dear reader, we can but invite you to contribute your favourite food words and stories below!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you’re hungry for information on how we talk about food, this will put a damper on it.Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash UniversityKate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1137552019-03-25T18:34:46Z2019-03-25T18:34:46ZA new twist in the elusive quest for the origins of the word ‘bogan’ leads to Melbourne’s Xavier College<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265485/original/file-20190324-36248-749687.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drawing of a 'bogan doll' which featured in a 1984 edition of a student-produced Xavier College magazine Sursum Corda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bogan is the most significant word to be created in Australian English in the past 40 years. It is defined as “an uncultured and unsophisticated person; a boorish and uncouth person” in the 2016 edition of the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/7011494?lookfor=moore%20australian%20national%20dictionary&offset=4&max=1807798">Australian National Dictionary</a>. </p>
<p>Ever relevant, the word has made the news in recent weeks with Will Connolly, the teenager who egged Senator Fraser Anning, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/don-t-egg-politicians-you-get-tackled-teen-who-egged-fraser-anning-speaks-20190317-p514us.html">posting a video online</a> warning that if you egg politicians, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhHiOSIMCuU">you get tackled by 30 bogans at the same time</a>”.</p>
<p>The type of Australian the term refers to has been the subject of books, television shows, and heated debate. The noun has generated many derivatives and compounds: bogan chick, boganhood, boganic, boganism, boganity, boganland, boganness. Not since “ocker” appeared in the late 1960s as a reference to an uncultured and uncouth Australian male has there been such a productive Australian word.</p>
<p>We have still not established its etymology. Some have argued the term “bogan” may derive from the Bogan River and district in western New South Wales. But there is no evidence whatsoever that could link our uncouth bogan with this area. Nor is there convincing evidence that Henry Lawson’s story <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9664711?selectedversion=NBD23913579">The Blindness of One-Eyed Bogan</a> gave rise to the word. </p>
<p>Until now, the earliest evidence of the word cited in the dictionary is from a letter signed by “Dave, Phillip Island, Vic” to the surfing magazine Tracks in September 1985. He asks: “So what if I have a mohawk and wear Dr Martens (boots for all you uninformed bogans)?”</p>
<p>But fresh evidence discovered by Melbourne historian Helen Doyle, and kindly passed on to me suggests the word dates to at least 1984, and probably originated in Melbourne. It comes from an article that appeared in the third edition of a magazine produced by students at Xavier College Melbourne in 1984, which includes a detailed description of “the bogan doll”. (In the same year, incidentally, ALP leader Bill Shorten was <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=M5-HCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=xavier%20college&f=false">a student at Xavier</a>.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265010/original/file-20190321-93036-1w2rdi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fictional ‘bogan doll’ came with optional extras including ‘nunnies’ and a flick knife.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This fictional male “doll” has rat tails and tattoos, wears an “Iron Maiden T-shirt or a sleeveless denim vest”, is adorned with studs or earrings “in the style of a Roman cross”, and has “a miniature pack of ‘Winny Blues’ […] to shove up the sleeve of his Eastcoast top”. </p>
<p>If there is a car to go with the doll, we are told, it will be “a black panel van […] [with] heavily modified engine”, and if the doll has a “female companion” she will come “complete with skin-tight jeans, ‘Eastcoast’ top and black moccasins”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265012/original/file-20190321-93024-63jps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘bogan doll’ in Sursum Corda in full.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The bogan doll comes armed with nunchakus (“nunnies”) and flick knife. It has a special button which, when pressed, allows the bogan doll to say: “Oi you, come over here I wanna smash ya bloody face” or “oi, did youse look at my bird? I’ll get me nummies onto yer”. An illustration of the bogan doll is also provided.</p>
<p>Four years after the publication of this article, Judith Clarke’s 1988 novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7207291-the-heroic-life-of-al-capsella">The Heroic Life of Al Capsella</a>, set in Melbourne, gives a description of bogans that appears to be a direct descendant of the students’ bogan doll:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It looked like the kind of place you might find Bogans hanging about, the kind of place you could get bashed up. […] Sure enough, in the yard of a house across the street, I saw a gang of Bogans in tight jeans and long checked shirts, mucking about with a big fancy car, vintage model, complete with brass lamps and running-board. I felt sure they’d ripped it off: for one thing, they were taking off the number plates.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So by the mid 1980s Melbourne had established the term bogan. It was absolutely synonymous with westie (used to describe someone from the western suburbs of Sydney), the bevan (a Queensland term), the booner ( a term from Canberra, sometimes abbreviated to boon – probably a shortening of the American boondocks, meaning “rough or isolated country”), and the chigga (a person from the working-class suburb of Chigwell in Hobart).</p>
<p>At this time a slightly variant meaning of bogan appeared, which also began as a Melbourne term. It was used in teenage slang for someone who was regarded as a bit of a dag, a sense popularised by the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnuf9-zgdyw">fictitious schoolgirl “Kylie Mole”</a> from the television show <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094440/">The Comedy Company</a> (which ran from 1988 to 1990). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bogan-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder-the-curious-case-of-rebel-wilson-78259">Bogan in the eye of the beholder: the curious case of Rebel Wilson</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Kylie Mole was played by the Melbourne-based actor Mary-Anne Fahey, and it seems possible that Fahey picked up this meaning from teenagers of the kind at work in the Xavier College magazine, giving a specialised “spin” to the general term of abuse. The nerdish bogan was not long lived, however, and it was soon overpowered by the hooligan bogan.</p>
<p>Unlike the other regional terms for “hooligan”, bogan soon spread Australia-wide. The evidence in the dictionary shows that by 1987 it was used at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra (it is included in B. Cowham’s 1987 glossary <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1799809">Legolingo: the Cadets’ Language</a>). Perhaps it was brought there by students from Melbourne. By the beginning of the 1990s it was everywhere.</p>
<p>In the journeyings of bogan there have been some slight changes in meaning. One important shift is the fact that it is no longer necessary for the bogan to belong to “a low socio-economic or poorly-educated background”. </p>
<p>The creation of the acronym CUB (“cashed-up bogan”) in the early 2000s was a sign that the original sense was shifting. Of course, a bogan can still come from such a background, as evidenced by the characters profiled in Paul Fenech’s 2017 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36141294-the-bogan-bible">The Bogan Bible</a>.</p>
<p>The major criteria for boganhood are: a lack of culture and sophistication; boorishness and uncouthness and vulgarity. But being a Melburnian is no longer a requirement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A 1984 magazine produced by students at Xavier College contains the earliest known reference to the word ‘bogan’ as we now understand it.Bruce Moore, Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1014612018-09-26T20:17:27Z2018-09-26T20:17:27ZFactCheck: do ‘over a million’ people in Australia not speak English ‘well or at all’?<blockquote>
<p>A growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>– Senator Pauline Hanson, <a href="https://www.senatorhanson.com.au/2018/09/19/protect-our-australian-way-of-life-senate-speech/">Senate speech</a>, September 19, 2018</strong></p>
<p>One Nation Party leader and Senator for Queensland Pauline Hanson is urging a rethink on Australia’s immigration policy, including changes to the “number and mix” of migrants coming to the country. </p>
<p>In a Senate speech, Hanson outlined a number of concerns she has with what she described as Australia’s “failed immigration policy”, including issues with social integration and the establishment of “culturally separate communities”.</p>
<p>The senator said a “growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people”.</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<h2>Checking the source</h2>
<p>In response to The Conversation’s request for sources and comment, an advisor to Senator Hanson accurately cited Census data showing the number of people who self-reported they spoke English “not well” or “not at all” was 820,000 in 2016, up from 655,000 in 2011 and 560,000 in 2006. </p>
<p>To reach a calculation of “over a million people” in 2018, Hanson’s office:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>added 66,000 people to the 2016 Census results, based on the assumption that the growth in the number of people in this category would be the same between the 2016 and 2021 Census as it was between 2011 and 2016, and</p></li>
<li><p>added a further 149,294 people to the 2016 results, based on the assumption that 10% of the 1,492,947 people who didn’t respond to the question in the Census about language proficiency did not speak English “well or at all”. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>You can read the full response from Hanson’s office <a href="https://theconversation.com/full-response-from-pauline-hanson-for-a-factcheck-on-english-language-proficiency-in-australia-103757">here</a>. </p>
<hr>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Senator Pauline Hanson said “a growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people”. </p>
<p>The most up to date information available on this question comes from the 2016 Census. The data show that the number of people who self-reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” in that year was 820,000. </p>
<p>Hanson was correct to say that number has been growing, from 560,000 people in 2006 to 820,000 people in 2016. This amounts to a rise from 2.8% of Australian residents in 2006 to 3.5% in 2016.</p>
<p>Over the same time, among people who speak a language other than English at home, the percentage of people who self-reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” fell, from 17.5% in 2006 to 16.6% in 2016.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind that self-reporting is not the most accurate measure. Some people will over-estimate their language capabilities, while others will under-estimate theirs. </p>
<hr>
<h2>What do the data show?</h2>
<p>In its five-yearly Australian Census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2900.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7EENGP%20Proficiency%20in%20Spoken%20English%7E10054">asks people</a> who speak a language other than English at home to state how well they speak English. </p>
<p>Respondents can choose from <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2901.0Chapter3202016">four options</a>: “very well”, “well”, “not well”, or “not at all”. The categories “not well” and “not at all” are reported together. </p>
<p>In the 2016 Census, <a href="http://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/communityprofile/036?opendocument">4.9 million people</a> reported speaking a language other than English at home. </p>
<p>Of those people, the number of people who reported they spoke English “not well” or “not at all” was 820,000. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6lO9L/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Hanson was correct to say the number of respondents who ticked the “not well” or “not at all” categories has been rising – from 560,000 people in 2006, to 655,000 people in 2011 and 820,000 in 2016.</p>
<p>But of course, the overall Australian population has also grown over that time.
So let’s look at the numbers as a proportion of the broader Australian population. On this measure, it amounts to a rise from 2.8% of all Australian residents in 2006 to 3.5% in 2016.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/X6ciV/5/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="100%" height="508"></iframe>
<p>Over the same time, the percentage of bilingual residents who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” fell slightly, from 17.5% in 2006 to 16.6% in 2016. </p>
<p>That means within the bilingual population, there was an improvement in perceived English language skills between 2006 and 2016. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qUV0X/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="100%" height="508"></iframe>
<p>Hanson said there were now “over a million” people in Australia who “cannot speak English well or at all”. There are two potential problems with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/full-response-from-pauline-hanson-for-a-factcheck-on-english-language-proficiency-in-australia-103757">calculations made</a> to come to this conclusion.</p>
<p>Firstly: the calculation assumes the same rate of growth in the number of people who speak English “not well” or “not at all” between 2016 and 2021 as it was between 2011 and 2016. </p>
<p>The number of people with little or no English language capability is largely a function of the overall migrant intake. As our overall migrant intake has increased, the absolute number of new arrivals with little or no English language capability has also increased.</p>
<p>However, since the 1990s, our migration program has become <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-s-migrant-intake-hits-10-year-low-under-turnbull">increasingly selective</a> and the <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/lega/lega/form/immi-faqs/aelt">English language requirements</a> for permanent residency have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2005.tb00284.x">risen</a>.</p>
<p>Second, the projected growth rate suggests that not speaking English well is an unalterable characteristic, and that new entrants with little English capability simply add to the existing number.</p>
<p>This assumption doesn’t account for the likelihood that many recent immigrants who responded that they did not speak English well or at all in the 2016 Census will have improved their English (or their confidence, or both) by 2021 and will respond that they speak English “well” or “very well” then.</p>
<h2>How accurate are the data?</h2>
<p>The Census data provide us with a rough guide to English language proficiency, but it’s not a particularly valid or reliable measure. </p>
<p>That’s because the judgements made in the survey are subjective. There’s no definition around what speaking English “well” or “not well” means. One person may overestimate their English proficiency, while another person may underestimate theirs.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2901.0Chapter48102016">noted by</a> the Australian Bureau of Statistics:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… one respondent may consider that a response of ‘Well’ is appropriate if they can communicate well enough to do the shopping, while another respondent may consider such a response appropriate only for people who can hold a social conversation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As such, these data should be interpreted with care. </p>
<p>Self-assessment <em>can</em> be a valid tool in determining language proficiency. But for that to be the case, the questions need to be much more detailed and sophisticated.</p>
<p>So while we can state that 820,000 Australians reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” in the 2016 census, it’s not possible to determine what that means in terms of their actual ability to communicate in their everyday lives.</p>
<h2>Most bilingual residents speak English ‘well’ or ‘very well’</h2>
<p>The vast majority of bilingual Australian residents report speaking English “well” or “very well” – more than 4 million out of 4.9 million. </p>
<p>Evidence of a certain level of English language proficiency is a <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/trav/work/work/age-skill-and-english-language-exemptions-permanent-employer-sponsored-programme">visa requirement</a> for most permanent migrants, and many temporary migrants. The key exceptions are humanitarian and family reunion migrants, whose reasons for admission supersede the immediate language requirements. </p>
<p>New citizens are also subject to an <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/trav/citi/pathways-processes/citizenship-test/about-the-citizenship-test">Australian citizenship test</a>, which is an implicit English language test, requiring a certain level of English language proficiency to pass.</p>
<p>The number of people in Australia with little or no English language capability depends not only on the number and mix of new migrants admitted, but the English language training provisions made available to those people when they arrive. <strong>– Ingrid Piller</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Blind review</h2>
<p>I agree with the verdict of this FactCheck. The sources used and conclusions drawn are correct. <strong>– Amanda Muller</strong></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Conversation FactCheck is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>The Conversation’s FactCheck unit was the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-conversations-factcheck-granted-accreditation-by-international-fact-checking-network-at-poynter-74363">Read more here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">checkit@theconversation.edu.au</a>. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Piller receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Humboldt Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Senator Pauline Hanson raised concerns about immigration and social cohesion, saying ‘more than a million people’ in Australia ‘cannot speak English well or at all’. Let’s look at the numbers.Ingrid Piller, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696242016-12-29T20:58:23Z2016-12-29T20:58:23ZThe shelf-life of slang – what will happen to those ‘democracy sausages’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151351/original/image-20161222-4090-4lva8j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year around this time, dictionaries across the English-speaking world announce their “Word of the Year”. These are expressions (some newly minted and some golden oldies too) that for some reason have shot into prominence during the year. </p>
<p>Earlier this month The Australian National Dictionary Centre <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-14/democracy-sausage-snags-word-of-the-year/8117684">declared its winner “democracy sausage”</a> – the barbecued snag that on election day makes compulsory voting so much easier to swallow.</p>
<p>Dictionaries make their selections in different ways, but usually it involves a combination of suggestions from the public and the editorial team (who have been meticulously tracking these words throughout the year). The Macquarie Dictionary has two selections – the Committee’s Choice made by the Word of the Year Committee, and the People’s Choice made by the public (so <a href="https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/word/of/the/year/">make sure you have your say</a> on January 24 for the People’s Choice winner 2016).</p>
<p>It’s probably not surprising that these words of note draw overwhelmingly from slang language, or “slanguage” – a fall-out of the increasing colloquialisation of English usage worldwide. In Australia this love affair with the vernacular goes back to the earliest settlements of English speakers. </p>
<p>And now there’s the internet, especially social networking – a particularly fertile breeding ground for slang. </p>
<p>People enjoy playing with language, and when communicating electronically they have free rein. “Twitterholic”, “twaddiction”, “celebritweet/twit”, “twitterati” are just some of the “tweologisms” that Twitter has spawned of late. And with a reported average of 500 million tweets each day, Twitter has considerable capacity not only to create new expressions, but to spread them (as do Facebook, Instagram and other social networking platforms).</p>
<p>But what happens when slang terms like these make it into the dictionary? Early dictionaries give us a clue, particularly the entries that are stamped unfit for general use. Branded entries were certainly plentiful in Samuel Johnson’s 18th-century work, and many are now wholly respectable: <em>abominably</em> “a word of low or familiar language”, <em>nowadays</em> “barbarous usage”, <em>fun</em> “a low cant word” (what would Johnson have thought of <em>very fun</em> and <em>funner</em>?).</p>
<p>Since the point of slang is to mark an in-group, to amuse and perhaps even to shock outsiders with novelty, most slang expressions are short-lived. Those that survive become part of the mainstream and mundane. Quite simply, time drains them of their vibrancy and energy. J.M. Wattie <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6749401M/The_grammarian_and_his_material">put it more poetically</a> back in 1930: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Slang terms are the mayflies of language; by the time they get themselves recorded in a dictionary, they are already museum specimens.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But, then again, expressions occasionally do sneak through the net. Not only do they survive, they stay slangy – and sometimes over centuries. Judge for yourselves. Here are some entries from A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language. Written by British convict James Hardy Vaux in 1812, this is the first dictionary compiled in Australia. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>croak</em> “to die”</p>
<p><em>grub</em> “food” </p>
<p><em>kid</em> “deceive”</p>
<p><em>mug</em> “face”</p>
<p><em>nuts on</em> “to have a strong inclination towards something or someone”</p>
<p><em>on the sly</em> “secretly”</p>
<p><em>racket</em> “particular kind of fraud”</p>
<p><em>snitch</em> “to betray”</p>
<p><em>stink</em> “an uproar”</p>
<p><em>spin a yarn</em> “tell a tale of great adventure”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These were originally terms of flash – or, as Vaux put it, “the cant language used by the family”. In other words, they belonged to underworld slang. The term <em>slang</em> itself meant something similar at this time; it broadened to highly colloquial language in the 1800s.</p>
<p>Vaux went on to point out that “to speak good flash is to be well versed in cant terms” — and, having been transported to New South Wales on three separate occasions during his “checkered and eventful life” (his words), Vaux himself was clearly well versed in the world of villainy and cant. </p>
<p>True, the majority of the slang terms here have dropped by the wayside (<em>barnacles</em> “spectacles”; <em>lush</em> “to drink”), and the handful that survives are now quite standard (<em>grab</em> “to seize”; <em>dollop</em> “large quantity”). But there are a few that have not only lasted, they’ve remained remarkably contemporary-sounding – some still even a little “disgraceful” (as Vaux described them).</p>
<p>The shelf-life of slang is a bit of mystery. Certainly some areas fray faster than others. Vaux’s <em>prime</em>, <em>plummy</em> and <em>rum</em> (meaning “excellent”) have well and truly bitten the dust. <em>Cool</em> might have made a comeback (also from the 1800s), but intensifiers generally wear out. </p>
<p><em>Far out</em> and <em>ace</em> have been replaced by <em>awesome</em>, and there are plenty of new “awesome” words lurking in the wings. Some of these are already appearing on lists for “Most Irritating Word of the Year” – it’s almost as if their success does them in. <em>Amazeballs</em>, <em>awesomesauce</em> and <em>phat</em> are among the walking dead. </p>
<p>But as long as sausage sizzles continue to support Australian voters on election day, <em>democracy sausages</em> will have a place – and if adopted elsewhere, might even entice the politically uninterested into polling booths.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Burridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While a lot of slang words come and go (‘good riddance’, ‘amazeballs’), others endure. And exactly why that happens is something of a mystery.Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.