macquarie

As the temperature drops from summer to autumn (and into winter), the leaves start to change colour and fall from the trees, and we button up our cardigans, pull on our woollen socks and make (yet another) cup of tea. Autumn is well and truly here. We have words for various weather phenomena in Australia, … Read more

Which would you use if three of these creatures flew over your boat?   We’ve discussed the differences between person and people before, but what is the rule when it comes to fish and fishes? While both are in use, and both correct, there is definitely a preference in usage.   The plural form fish is the … Read more

More than 3,500 new entries have been added to the new Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition. The words reflect changes in our usage of Australian English since the Seventh Edition was published in 2017. Below is a selection of these new words.  Our inclusion of environmental words reflects the strong presence in the public consciousness of environmental and … Read more

This blog goes out to all the accident-prone people of the world, our fellow uncos. Unco or The Man from Unco means awkward or clumsy. Typically used by schoolkids, unco is a shortened version of uncoordinated.  That was an unco thing to do You’re so unco Aussie slang is chockers with great and hilarious terms … Read more

One-pub town is a way to describe those small Australian country towns you drive through on a road trip. They often sit on a crossroads with one pub, one church and a hand full of scattered houses or homesteads marking them out from the surrounding landscape.  One-pub towns lie even further out of our urban … Read more

We all know on person who specialises in ruining our fun. A wowser is slang name for a prudish teetotaller; a killjoy, spoilsport or nark; a person who doesn’t know how to have fun and wishes to prevent others from doing so. Wowser first appeared in the 1890s in the Sydney Truth newspaper and was later claimed by the editor John Norton … Read more

By the time you reach retirement age, you have earned the chance to wander. Grey nomads are as much a part of the Australian landscape as eucalyptus trees and red dirt. A grey nomad is a colloquial name for an older person, often retired from full-time work, who travels around the country, living in a caravan or … Read more

Recent events have led to an upsurge in suburban gardeners across Australia planting their own little veggie patches. We can’t talk about growing our own food without mentioning the choko, the pear-shaped, light-green, fruit of a South American vine, often grown in backyards and eaten as a vegetable. The choko vine was once ubiquitous to Australian backyards. They … Read more

We’ve got you pegged with this week’s Aussie Word of the Week. Commonly used in New South Wales and Queensland, peg is an adaptable piece of Aussie slang that means to toss or throw something. In use since at least the 1940s, peg has a few other meanings you are likely to hear around Australia. … Read more

Trackies, a staple of Australian fashion since the glorious 1990s, have had a resurgence in recent years…