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Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

U

uggies: sheepskin boots
Ugg boots, popularised originally by surfers, is a proprietary name used generically.
uey: a u-turn
Pronounced you–ee.
Chuck a uey at the end of the street.
Uluru ∼ Great Pebble: the worlds's biggest rock or monolith
Formed 600 million years ago from arkose, a type of sandstone that contains feldspar which glows a fiery red at sunrise and sunset. Known as Ayers Rock from 1872, it was re-named Uluru in 1985 and returned to the ownership and care of the local Aboriginal people, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, who consider the area sacred.; It is located within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park about 450 kms south-west of Alice Springs, and is classified as a World Heritage site.; Aboriginal Australia
umpie: an umpire
sporting slang since the 1960s
uni: university
unit: flat, apartment
A contraction of home-unit
unco: uncoordinated
aussie youth slang since the 1980s
undies: underpants
underdaks: men's underpants
From daks meaning pants.
Also called underchunders or underdungers.
unreal: excellent, unbelievably wonderful
It's been so unreal seeing you again.
aussie youth slang since the 1970s
up oneself: to have a high opinion of oneself
That new bloke is really up himself.
up somebody: to rebuke somebody
The boss got up me for being late
up the creek: to be ruined, finished
Now we're really up shit creek without a paddle.
up the duff: to be pregnant
up there Cazaly!: a cry of encouragement in aussie rules football
Originally directed at Roy Cazaly, a VFL legend.; aussie rules
up to scratch: to be fit for the purpose at hand
up you!: damn you!
Commonly written and pronounced upya, the plural being upyas.
aussie slang since the 1940s
usual: one's customary drink
You qualify as a local when you can walk into your favorite bar and have your usual placed before you without a word being said.
However, when you want another one, don't ask for the same again. Barstaff can be linguistic purists, and will remind you that you can't have the same again because you've already had it!
They'll give you something similar.
ute: a utility truck
An open-back work vehicle, known elsewhere as a pickup truck.
With two doors, two seats, and a V8 donk, it is the de-facto aussie sportscar.

australian army

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first australians

Long before a word of English was ever spoken in Australia, the Aboriginal languages were heard all over the continent.

Each group or mob has its own language, but those languages spoken close to what later became the main centres of European population were those which have had the most influence on modern Aussie English.

Aboriginal words are likely to have been absorbed into Aussie English as local leaders from both native groups and colonists tried to find some tentative common ground; and as the new arrivals sought to find names for the strange new things they were seeing.

Aboriginal words common in Aussie English include yakka, meaning work–common usage is the collocation ‘hard yakka’, and cooee, first used by Aboriginal people calling each other through the bush.

Also of Aboriginal origin is bung, from the aboriginal language Yagara in the Brisbane region, meaning "dead" and by extension "broken" or "useless".

Many place names are Aboriginal — the capital Canberra is so‑named because it means "meeting place" in Ngunnawal, the traditional language of the Ngunnawal and Gandangara peoples.

Commonly used Aboriginal words include many animal names, such as kookaburra, koala, wallaby and dingo.

animals of australia

immigrant influences

Whether convicts or willing migrants, the Europeans who found their way to Australia from the eighteenth century onwards came from a wide range of different groups.

At that time, there were great differences between different British English dialects, so that convicts from different regions of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland would all have spoken very differently.
Some would not have spoken English at all – being Irish or Scots Gaelic or Welsh speakers.

To understand each other, these groups would have begun to create a common language, and words from various dialects would have become part of a new slang and new idioms.

new australians

The children of those early settlers would have been keen to mark themselves out as Australians, rather than Irish or English, and that meant that new accents and speech patterns developed as quickly as the colony itself did.

It was almost as if an informal Australian school of English and Irish arrivals alike had set itself up. Words which found their way into the language via the convicts include tucker, an Irish word for food, and swag a word from the criminal underworld meaning a parcel of goods taken by a thief, but coming to mean a bushman's bag.

the gold rush days

This era brought words such as fossick into common usage.

the bushrangers

Many terms come from the bushranger tradition, such as bush telegraph, bail up, and game as Ned Kelly.

the first world war

WWⅠ added another layer of slang, such as dinkum , meaning genuine or real.

Australian English is peppered with unique slang words and particular types of phraseology such as strine and ocker.

diminutives in australia

The use of diminutive forms of words such as arvo for afternoon or barbie for barbecue is common. Some words, such as ute, from utility vehicle, a car with a tray back, have become universal.

While many languages make use of diminutives, Aussie English uses them extensively – there are over 5,000 identified diminutives in use in Australia.

let stalk strine!

Do you have a Gloria Soame?
What are sex?
What is an egg nishner?
And can you tell me where checque etcher londger ray?

Professor Lauder knows the answers‼