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shanghai
(pronounced shang-eye) A slingshot made from a forked stick with rubbers made from linked rings cut from bicycle tube: I shot the yonnie out of my shanghai (Melbourne ca 1960) Compare dong-eye, ging, gonk, slingshot.
Contributor's comments: Shanghai was in common usage in Tasmania when I was growing up (1980s).
Contributor's comments: Shanghai also used extensively in Tas.
Contributor's comments: [Perth informant] I have used shanghai and ging when I was about 10 - 12 years old. These weapons do not seem to be so common these days. I have not seen one for many years. I used to make good ones that didn't break.
Contributor's comments: [Qld informant] As a child in the 50's we used 'ging' but I recall our parents using shanghai.
Contributor's comments: Also quite common in '50's NSW (Central Coast). More usually made with long strips of rubber from a car tube, with a leather pouch for the stone. (Marbles worked brilliantly too!) More rrecently, surgical rubber tubing was even better. [Shanghais are now illegal, _of_course_!!!] Sometimes called a "gonk" (cf. ging).
Contributor's comments: Of course, with North Queensland pronunciation, this was always shang-eye.
Contributor's comments: [Adelaide informant] Shanghai was used here too. Also Ging.
Contributor's comments: Shanghai fights were very popular growing up in the 60s in Victoria. I remember fights with 5 or 10 kids a side. We used to use little hard berries as ammunition. Didn't do as much damage as brinnies, but jeez they stung. A favourite trick was to lie in ambush by the tree where the berries grew and surprise the 'enemy' when they returned for more ammo.
Contributor's comments: As a child growing up in Brisbane in the 50's and 60's we used both terms shanghai and ging. Us kids preferred ging but I think my grandfather who quite lovingly made my first one for me out of fencing wire used shanghai.
Contributor's comments: Shanghai was also commonly used in N.E. Victoria when I was a kid.
Contributor's comments: Also used in FNQ.
Contributor's comments: [Coffs Harbour informant] They were called shanghais when I used them.
Contributor's comments: A catapault: "I fired a rock at the bird with my shang hai."
Contributor's comments: The term was used in the Hunter in the 40's and 50's when I was at school and my father also uses the term when talking about his childhood in the Hunter in the 20's.
Contributor's comments: Among kids I played with growing up in the 1940s in a country town about 25 miles out of Melbourne, 'shanghai' was the word. I might have heard 'ging' or 'catapult' occasionally. Never 'gonk' or 'slingshot'.
Contributor's comments: Shanghai was always the word for sling shot in Broken Hill in 50's 60's.
Contributor's comments: shangeye: means catapult: "I shot a bird with my shangeye."