In this stressful time of coronavirus, it’s interesting to see that our passions have been aroused by an international dispute over the pronunciation of a three-letter word – emu. In a US report on NPR (National Public Radio) about a woman who had lost her emu, the journalist pronounced the word ‘ee-mooh’. This was picked … Read more
Rebel Without A Clause by Sue Butler is a fascinatingly idiosyncratic romp through the world of words from the former Editor of the Macquarie Dictionary coming on 29 September 2020. The English language is changing constantly. We invent new words and phrases, we mash up idioms, we mispronounce, misuse, and misappropriate. Sue Butler has heard it … Read more
Aussies love sticking a bet on the races, particularly at Melbourne Cup time. If you’re lucky enough to win big you might find it in the kindness of your heart to divvy up the winnings with your family and friends. Divvy comes in verb or noun form, the latter meaning a dividend (which is where the word divvy comes … Read more
This week, we are walking through the Bogan gate, and we don’t mean the town in Central New South Wales. A Bogan gate is a gate made from barbed wire and stakes, found in the bush. Picture a haphazard structure made of timber and wire, pulled across a paddock. We have written in depth about the … Read more
A flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. You are being hunted. Eight legs creep across the wall. Tangled in a web of fear, you turn to face… the triantelope!! Ok, enough low-budget horror movie stuff. This week’s Word of the Week is a true blue, eight-legged Aussie legend. The triantelope is a nickname … Read more
This week’s Word of the Week is dedicated to your granny. How many times did she catch you with your hand in the biscuit tin? When you made your granny mad she roused on you. In other words she slipped into her thickest brogue and scolded you with a heat hotter than a boiled kettle. Ouch. There are … Read more
Welcome to our new words blog, where we share new and topical words, some of which were submitted by you via the suggest a word feature on our website. There is a powerful stretch in the evenings. That’s right, winter is finally shuffling off the seasonal stage (to sparse applause, a chilly reception you might say, … Read more
We’ve all been to enough school dances and weddings to know that Aussies love to get in line and dance in sync. From the nutbush to the macarena and the hokey-pokey to the modern wave of TikTok dances, let’s have a look at what has and has yet to make it into the Macquarie Dictionary. … Read more
While popularly remembered as a chain of restaurants, the term black stump was commonly used in colonial times as a colloquial term to denote a fire-blackened tree stump used as a boundary or direction marker. Over time, the term black stump evolved to include any reference to the far outback or places beyond what was … Read more
Many English words have been borrowed from French (and many other languages). There are lots of words that descend from the French language that crossed the English Channel with William the Conqueror in the 11th century, and which don’t seem French to us at all, such as abandon, volume, wardrobe, finance and descend. More recent borrowings still … Read more
