Is This Just In Australia?

[Doc]

Now would this be an example of the Great Oz Fair Dinkum Spirit?

Protesters have gathered at an Australian hospital to support doctors that have refused to discharge a baby facing deportation to a detention camp.

The Lady Cilento Hospital in Brisbane said the year-old girl will not be released "until a suitable home environment is identified".

The daughter of asylum-seeker parents suffered serious burns at an immigration camp on Nauru island.

The government says its controversial offshore detention policy is necessary.

It is aimed at preventing asylum seekers trying to reach Australia on unseaworthy boats.

Ellen Roberts, a spokeswoman for campaign group GetUp, said protesters were "standing in solidarity" with the baby's parents - who are in Brisbane - and the hospital.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35568467

More a case, I think, of Australias' generosity and compassion being used against it to sneak asylum seekers in through the back door.

There are minimal medical facilities in Nauru, but Australia has said emergencies will be evacuated for treatment to Australia and then returned to Nauru.

The girl was burned when boiling water was "accidentally" spilled over her. She was evacuated, along with her parents as she is so young, and treated, and now according to the deal they knew existed, they should all go back.

If she stays, her parents will stay. I wonder how long it will then be before Mum wants HER parents to be let in, and Dad wants HIS parents let in ... and his sister, and her brother .. because of a "right to a family life" ..

 

[ramonmercado]

More a case, I think, of Australias' generosity and compassion being used against it to sneak asylum seekers in through the back door.

There are minimal medical facilities in Nauru, but Australia has said emergencies will be evacuated for treatment to Australia and then returned to Nauru.

The girl was burned when boiling water was "accidentally" spilled over her. She was evacuated, along with her parents as she is so young, and treated, and now according to the deal they knew existed, they should all go back.

If she stays, her parents will stay. I wonder how long it will then be before Mum wants HER parents to be let in, and Dad wants HIS parents let in ... and his sister, and her brother .. because of a "right to a family life" ..

I don't think such circumstances and goodwill should be used to enable extra people to stay.
Peoples applications should be judged on their merits if their lives/safety is at risk.

I just liked this particular action by the doctors.

 

[Doc]

I don't think such circumstances and goodwill should be used to enable extra people to stay.
Peoples applications should be judged on their merits if their lives/safety is at risk.

I just liked this particular action by the doctors.

I can understand that, and I have no doubt the doctors think they are acting with compassion.

I think the use of the word "deportation" makes the story something more than it is. The baby, and the family, currently LIVE in Nauru; they were granted temporary access to Australia, and now the government wants to RETURN them there, not deport them. They were never imported, permanently.

 

[Mungoman]

I must say, latter-day Strine vocabulary seems to be extremely-popular amongst large population groups living in a certain small northern hemisphere island group that's a located a couple of light-years north-east from the Continent. I predict that terms such as 'barbie' and 'strewth' will become the predominant forms in the UK before the end of the decade (the word "wonga" is now even used in Buckingham Palace, my taxi driver told me that, and he certainly knows where he's going)

Anyway @DougalLongfoot many thanks for the Macquarie map. I'll now withdraw my vexatious allegation that you might've been a closet Austrian, I can finally see you're a true-blue Aussie that does know a thing or two regarding antipodean adhesive tape, so, ergo we can now just say in the words of that Wonka drongo pax australis cognito prophylacticum and leave it at that.

I was able initially to see an actual sociotopograhical map on the Macquarie site, but now it won't show again, on my unsmart phone. The presence of a 28th large (unnamed) rectangular island off the south coast of Australia intrigued me. I'm sure it's just a representational map-fudge, but the concept of an enormous unexplored WW2 concrete barge the size of Italy floating loosely between the south coast of Australia, and Antarctica, is very appealing.

Ermintrude, what's a wonga?

 

[DougalLongfoot]

Every thread needs a theme tune.

Haven't seen/heard that in a long long time, must be about 30 years old now.

 

[Ermintruder]

Ermintrude, what's a wonga?

Fascinating....I'm now either teaching Australian to an Australian, or, my life-long presumptive belief as to the word being a loan-word, from an Aboriginal name, is entirely wrong. Setting aside any parallel universe theories for the moment, its money, cash, dollars. And I did think it was specifically, previously, $AUS, before having become one of the masses of semi-slang cod-Cockney British synonyms for money.

<goes away to check online>
<comes back astounded>

@mungoman, this is astonishing. I'm both wrong and right, for the wrong reasons, and you're wrong (or, rather, under-informed) for other reasons.

So...here's my revised theory. I suspect that the word 'wonga' has two totally-parallel etymologies. But I remain stubbornly-convinced that I (and perhaps others on FTMB.....back me up, here, folks) have heard noted Australians use the word, to mean "money".

I'm now putting myself into a post-hypnotic trance....might this've been a "Neighbours"/Grundy import, into the UK, back in the 80s, when we all learnt Strine demotic terms such as 'thisavo' and 'condo' and 'duplex' , and, realised that 'dobbing someone into the rozzers' wasn't exactly cricket...? Maybe it was Joe Mangel?

Or could it have been Dame Edna/ Sir Rex Parsons? Pre-Paul Hogan? My gut feeling is that it pre-dates all this, back to a vague 'Skippy The Bush Kangaroo', or earlier era. Perhaps one of the Australian Children's Film Foundation imports, both cinematic and phonetic?

Wait!! The penny's dropped. And I think I have the answer!!! Also, in so doing, I've made what must be an (already-known?surely?) major linguistic conclusion, that will interest all you Australians (and, quite a few on the Board).

The word 'wonga' is described by Wiki as being a Romany term for money. However, I bet you a pile of Wonga that it's also a Polari word for money!!!

So if I'm right, it's a Julian-and-Sandy/'Round the Horne'/Carry On 1950s/60s era expression, populised/mainstreamed back then, feeding back inevitably into some elements in Australia with that meaning (sorry @MungomanII , I genuinely believe that at least some native Aussies will use it in the financial sense....and if not now, they will have in the 50s-past).

But this leads me to make a proposal (for me, independantly-concluded, and surely already known of by professional phylologists).... contemporary Strine/Australian English must have found much of it's vocabular origins from within Polari.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari

"Polari (or alternatively Parlare, Parlary,Palare, Palarie, Palari; from Italian parlare, "to talk") is a form of cantslang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, merchant navy sailors, criminals, prostitutes, and the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced back to at least the nineteenth century and possibly the sixteenth century. There is a long-standing connection with Punch and Judy street puppet performers who traditionally used Polari to converse."

ps I also now realise that much of the fundamental confusion between British/Australian/African English (grouped), versus North American English, is the total absence of any rhyming slang/pseudo-Polari/Cockney, in America

 

[Mungoman]

Thanks Ermintrude, I've known of Wonga pigeons, but not the word wonga meaning money. My recollections of Australian slang for money was spondooliks.

It was then broken down into pre-decimal currency with names for each individual denomination, ie, penny (copper), threepence (tray), sixpence (zac), shilling (deener), two shillings (florin), ten shillings (half a quid) &c. When going out 'on the piss', it was local knowledge to secrete a ten bob note in your shoe so that, if you got done for 'drunk and disorderly' you could bail yourself out in the morning, and also, not be charged with being a 'vag', or vagrant. At the time it was considered very bad form to appear drunk, even though you might be drunk as a lord - you would be forever after known as someone who couldn't hold his drink (piss head).


an interesting note is that we have a game, two up, that's illegal for 364 days in the year, but on ANZAC day the police look the other way and it's on for young and old. I knew this game not only as two up, but also as swy, and of course the German for two was Zwei - another curiosity was the name for a threepence and a sixpence - tray and zac - rather similar to the German Drei and Sechs - curioser and curioser...


The decimal coinage was based on their colour, more than anything, and so the dollar was an oxford (Scholar). the rest seemed to constantly change from one to the other based on your generation. I knew the fiver as a passionfruit, the tenner as a groper, the twenty as a lobster, and the fifty as a pineapple.

But the term wonga - I have to plead ignorance Ermintrude.

 

[Ermintruder]

we have a game, two up, that's illegal for 364 days in the year, but on ANZAC day the police look the other way

In Scotland, this game was called "twa 'sup"/twa up or twaps. I haven't heard of it since the early 1970s.

Interesting Australo-germanic coin-names...

Incidently, "Twa" as a term for two/deux/duo, appears to be a transfer from 'dwa', as in 'cappa dwa', which I'd also originally thought to have been Aboriginal Australian, but apparently this fella (Kap Dwa) is/was African, and not Aussie (unless the Outback bushmen have a local equivalent)

 

[Ermintruder]

Now, this is just in Australia...this has bothered me forever, so I'm going to have to cough this problem up on the screen, and have done with it. Here's the thing.

Australia strikes me, geographinomically, as just being far too.... alphabetically-consecutive. I'll now try and fail to convey what I'm thinking.

The state names seem too impossibly deliberately linked.

Here, a thousand words can tell a picture, but, what the NQSTVW is it, about a map of Australia, that just seems somehow so odd, for naming?

New South Wales deserves a question mark, since it hits 'N', 'S' and 'W'. Not neglecting NT...

It all just (somehow) seems oddly collected, grouped, associated.

Strewth, I've no idea what I now mean, perhaps someone can explain. Please note, I'm not suggesting any level of deliberate planning. Or am I?

 

[Doc]

Thanks Ermintrude, I've known of Wonga pigeons, but not the word wonga meaning money. My recollections of Australian slang for money was spondooliks.

It was then broken down into pre-decimal currency with names for each individual denomination, ie, penny (copper), threepence (tray), sixpence (zac), shilling (deener), two shillings (florin), ten shillings (half a quid) &c. When going out 'on the piss', it was local knowledge to secrete a ten bob note in your shoe so that, if you got done for 'drunk and disorderly' you could bail yourself out in the morning, and also, not be charged with being a 'vag', or vagrant. At the time it was considered very bad form to appear drunk, even though you might be drunk as a lord - you would be forever after known as someone who couldn't hold his drink (piss head).


an interesting note is that we have a game, two up, that's illegal for 364 days in the year, but on ANZAC day the police look the other way and it's on for young and old. I knew this game not only as two up, but also as swy, and of course the German for two was Zwei - another curiosity was the name for a threepence and a sixpence - tray and zac - rather similar to the German Drei and Sechs - curioser and curioser...


The decimal coinage was based on their colour, more than anything, and so the dollar was an oxford (Scholar). the rest seemed to constantly change from one to the other based on your generation. I knew the fiver as a passionfruit, the tenner as a groper, the twenty as a lobster, and the fifty as a pineapple.

But the term wonga - I have to plead ignorance Ermintrude.

One monetary slang word I used because everyone else did/does, but I never understood the origins/philology of, is "Bucks" for "Dollars" (you owe me fifty bucks). I know the Yanks used it long before the Aussies, so maybe Oz just adopted an Americanism. But why is $US and $Aus a "buck" in the first place?

 

[David Plankton]

One monetary slang word I used because everyone else did/does, but I never understood the origins/philology of, is "Bucks" for "Dollars" (you owe me fifty bucks). I know the Yanks used it long before the Aussies, so maybe Oz just adopted an Americanism. But why is $US and $Aus a "buck" in the first place?

There are quite a few countries that use 'Dollars', do they call them Bucks as well or is it just US+Aus?

 

[Doc]

There are quite a few countries that use 'Dollars', do they call them Bucks as well or is it just US+Aus?

I've heard it used in NZ too.

 

[Ermintruder]

I'm uncertain about this, but I reckon the term 'bucks' is/was also interchangable with "Pounds" (£UK) and Punts (in pre-€ RoI/IRL). The many learned Irishvolk here will confirm or deny my assertion in respect of over the water, but were I to bet, I'd think that certainly in the Celtlandic fringes even of Australasia, this could've been the vector....a parallel one, to the Americas

 

[David Plankton]

Just grabbed this from Wikipedia:-

Australian dollar
Bahamian dollar
Barbadian dollar
Belize dollar
Bermudian dollar
Brunei dollar
Canadian dollar
Cayman Islands dollar
Cook Islands dollar
East Caribbean dollar
Fijian dollar
Guyanese dollar
Hong Kong dollar
Jamaican dollar
Kiribati dollar
Liberian dollar
Namibian dollar
New Zealand dollar
Samoan tālā
Singapore dollar
Solomon Islands dollar
Surinamese dollar
New Taiwan dollar
Trinidad and Tobago dollar
Tuvaluan dollar
United States dollar

 

[Doc]

I'm uncertain about this, but I reckon the term 'bucks' is/was also interchangable with "Pounds" (£UK) and Punts (in pre-€ RoI/IRL). The many learned Irishvolk here will confirm or deny my assertion in respect of over the water, but were I to bet, I'd think that certainly in the Celtlandic fringes even of Australasia, this could've been the vector....a parallel one, to the Americas

Never heard pounds referred to as Bucks, Ermintrude. Always slanged as Quid (from Quid pro Quo).

 

[Mungoman]

In Scotland, this game was called "twa 'sup"/twa up or twaps. I haven't heard of it since the early 1970s.

Interesting Australo-germanic coin-names...

Incidently, "Twa" as a term for two/deux/duo, appears to be a transfer from 'dwa', as in 'cappa dwa', which I'd also originally thought to have been Aboriginal Australian, but apparently this fella (Kap Dwa) is/was African, and not Aussie (unless the Outback bushmen have a local equivalent)

The Old People had a common myth of giants throughout Australia, some twice as big as a man, others, as big as a tree.

Their mobs names varied, from the Jugong, Tjangara, Jimbra, Turramulli, Kraitbull and the Pankalanka. I mean no offence Ermintrude but this large fellow, KapDwa, is not An Australian Aborigine, though some might be confused, as his hair is of a Negrito type, and there's claimed that there is none in Australia, unless you hold to the idea of the Australian pygmy who, it's claimed did have Negrito type hair.

 

[Mungoman]

I vaguely recollect one story that it was called a buck, was because one of the earliest dollar coins had an Indian 'buck' on the obverse side.

Conversely in trade goods known well before the dollar came about, one buck (a well preserved deer hide) was a standard unit of trade - or so I'm led to believe.

 

[Mungoman]

Never heard pounds referred to as Bucks, Ermintrude. Always slanged as Quid (from Quid pro Quo).

Interesting Doc, but my Dad called a halfcrown a 'half dollar' - I always wondered where he got the terminology from...

 

[Dinobot]

"buck" comes from buck skins, which were used as currency.

 

[Ermintruder]

"buck" comes from buck skins, which were used as currency.

Ah, this sounds possible.

Another etymology I've heard suggested is from the Indo-Persian word for tithe or alms bucksheesh/backsheesh which certainly seems to have come back into the UK and Empire along with returning men from Army, from service in India. This reinforcement path for still-existing half-remembered demotics (applying nearly as much to returning ANZAC vets, as to pre-1914 Thommy, Shug and Seamus soldiers returning from Dehli and the Khyber).

There's a remarkably-useable amount of Hindi and Urdu language that came back with these men. People like my maternal grandfather, who was Indian Army (and thus served in WW1, but not as a Kitchener conscript) brought home lots of terms from Asia that (resurrected by the likes of It Ain't Half Hot Mum on TV) means that 60s kids like me are actually able to make small-talk with non Engĺish-speaking Urdu users.

@MungomanII the giants of the Old People tales are indeed interesting: and, interestingly, internationally-universal. Do the Aborigines have dragon legends, from the era of Australis Incognito?

Thanks for the clarification that Kap Dwa wasn't Aussie, but was an African entity only.

Something historically-Fortean, from Australia, is Governor Davey's Proclamation to the Natives. Presumably it's well-known about in Aus? It always reminds me of looking like what the world might get, flung out the window of an invading spacecraft, wrapped around a chunk of Martian redstone...

 

[Mungoman]

Ah, this sounds possible.

Another etymology I've heard suggested is from the Indo-Persian word for tithe or alms bucksheesh/backsheesh which certainly seems to have come back into the UK and Empire along with returning men from Army, from service in India. This reinforcement path for still-existing half-remembered demotics (applying nearly as much to returning ANZAC vets, as to pre-1914 Thommy, Shug and Seamus soldiers returning from Dehli and the Khyber).

There's a remarkably-useable amount of Hindi and Urdu language that came back with these men. People like my maternal grandfather, who was Indian Army (and thus served in WW1, but not as a Kitchener conscript) brought home lots of terms from Asia that (resurrected by the likes of It Ain't Half Hot Mum on TV) means that 60s kids like me are actually able to make small-talk with non Engĺish-speaking Urdu users.

@MungomanII the giants of the Old People tales are indeed interesting: and, interestingly, internationally-universal. Do the Aborigines have dragon legends, from the era of Australis Incognito?

Thanks for the clarification that Kap Dwa wasn't Aussie, but was an African entity only.

Something historically-Fortean, from Australia, is Governor Davey's Proclamation to the Natives. Presumably it's well-known about in Aus? It always reminds me of looking like what the world might get, flung out the window of an invading spacecraft, wrapped around a chunk of Martian redstone...

The foreign words in our family Ermintrude, were Jildy jildy (quickly) Bint (disparaging term for a female) Baksheesh (bribe) chit (Receipt or small piece of paper) Tiffin ( high tea) Wallah (hired man, worker)...the rest seem to have disappeared into the mist of time. My Grandad fought in WWI (born 1892), but there is no recollection of anybody in the family going to the sub-continent - from what I remember the previous mentioned words seemed to have been it common usage by parents and grandparents alike.

Dragons in Australia seemed to have been an actual thing with a terrestial crocodile (Quinkana sp.)that grew to 5 metres and a further large sized reptile, a goanna (Varanus priscus)that grew to 7 metres, along with a python (Wonambi naracoortensis), that grew to 6 metres. I have seen a large varanid run and, in short bursts, it ran as fleet as a dog - it is a wonder that any ancestors of the aborigines lived, with those sort of beasties running around the local neighborhood.


Governor Daveys proclamation induced terror into the Aborigines it was shown to, due to the idea of killing deliberately, a human being, which the colonists would and could do. The offensives between Aboriginal mobs usually ended with the first death from either side and the idea of full scale war was a concept that would be taught to them by the Queensland native mounted police -but yes Ermintrude, it does look like a primer for children doesn't it...

 

[Ermintruder]

Yes, these words were all strong inheritances in our home too, @MungomanII . Some have become quite shared and enwoven into British/Commonwealth English language, but I get the distinct impression that the more-recent Brit-kid generations haven't carried them on at all, favouring the minisyllabic unnuanced flavour that is American English.

As well as jilldy jilldy and chit, we had 'tikky' (a small amount) 'aahtchaah!' (a deflatory "you don't say!", and universal gap-filler), 'cushy' (soft, easy job, far too often now homphoned with 'cushtie', which is not the same thing!! Idiots mix these up, and bug me stupid....similar furiousity is raised when the hard-of-thinking misapply tack/tact; gamut/gambit; insure/ensure/assure....I turn into a Dalek and want to exterminate!)

'Dekko' is a good bit of British Indiaspeak. When I was a kid, everyone had to have a 'dekko' or 'deck' at whatever was interesting in the playground.

But they haven't had the established success of: guru, gymkhana, jodhpurs, bungalow, pyjamas, jungle, khaki, avatar, juggernaut, karma, loot, mogul, mantra, nirvana, pundit, pukka, shawl, sorbet, shampoo, thug, toddy, typhoon, veranda, yoga (to name but a few). My instinct tells me very-few of these hold any currency in North America, perhaps some limited uptake in Canada.

But linguistically, the Raj provided a rich lexicon into Commonwealth English, for sure.

On a four-legged footing: those are some scary-big scaly beasts you describe there, @MungomanII . More reasons to hide in the safe cold and wet little island that is Blighty (another Hindi/Urdh word)

ps I noticed you've pitched a bivvi over at the WH forum. Good man! It's heavy heady stuff, but very interesting. I'm a long-term lurker, there, as I was here (until I broke cover) and then never really went back into my burrow....

 

[Mungoman]

Yes, these words were all strong inheritances in our home too, @MungomanII . Some have become quite shared and enwoven into British/Commonwealth English language, but I get the distinct impression that the more-recent Brit-kid generations haven't carried them on at all, favouring the minisyllabic unnuanced flavour that is American English.

As well as jilldy jilldy and chit, we had 'tikky' (a small amount) 'aahtchaah!' (a deflatory "you don't say!", and universal gap-filler), 'cushy' (soft, easy job, far too often now homphoned with 'cushtie', which is not the same thing!! Idiots mix these up, and bug me stupid....similar furiousity is raised when the hard-of-thinking misapply tack/tact; gamut/gambit; insure/ensure/assure....I turn into a Dalek and want to exterminate!)

'Dekko' is a good bit of British Indiaspeak. When I was a kid, everyone had to have a 'dekko' or 'deck' at whatever was interesting in the playground.

But they haven't had the established success of: guru, gymkhana, jodhpurs, bungalow, pyjamas, jungle, khaki, avatar, juggernaut, karma, loot, mogul, mantra, nirvana, pundit, pukka, shawl, sorbet, shampoo, thug, toddy, typhoon, veranda, yoga (to name but a few). My instinct tells me very-few of these hold any currency in North America, perhaps some limited uptake in Canada.

But linguistically, the Raj provided a rich lexicon into Commonwealth English, for sure.

On a four-legged footing: those are some scary-big scaly beasts you describe there, @MungomanII . More reasons to hide in the safe cold and wet little island that is Blighty (another Hindi/Urdh word)

ps I noticed you've pitched a bivvi over at the WH forum. Good man! It's heavy heady stuff, but very interesting. I'm a long-term lurker, there, as I was here (until I broke cover) and then never really went back into my burrow....

Having a dekko was common parlance over here in the late 50's and through the 60's, parralelling a 'Captain Cook' as meaning the same, and yes, whenever they trot out the old saw that man killed out the megafaunna, I just think that they really haven't thought it through, what with the above there was also a large carnivorous kangaroo, along with the Thylacoleo - also the other facts that nearly all megafauna on the various continents died out at the same time, and that the large quadruped remains found in Australia were mainly found around diminished water holes.

I had a look at WH Ermintrude, believing that it was another repository of strangeness for the discerning voyeur but found that the main topic of conversation was the idea and belief by many that the world was a concavity, and that therefore the moon landing was impossible, and therefore faked - I retreated gently, backwards, on tippytoes, promising myself that I would not repeat the mistake of venturing there again.

In my staidness Ermintrude, some ideas are plainly just too weird for me...

 

[Ermintruder]

(WH)...I retreated gently, backwards, on tippytoes, promising myself that I would not repeat the mistake of venturing there again.

They sometimes speak, perhaps, in parables, of parallels. Always worth a drive-by, they have high-fibre conceptualisations on which to chew and eschew, I feel it helps keep the brain regular.

On an Australian traditions level...is there any actual truth to the supposed veneration of an iconic boot, in the Aussie parliament? In this Simpson clip, Bart and Homer make worse an already-major public relations debacle between Oz and USA....I assumed it's totally-fictional, am I wrong?

 

[Mungoman]

It was the idea of earth being the inside of a globe that had me questioning the web site, and no, you're not wrong Ermintrude - but the promise of 'a toe up the quoit' certainly made an Aussie child think twice about what they were doing...

 

[Mungoman]

These are all new houses, and I think that the last time this happened here, there would've been just bare paddocks where these houses are now built. As for "it's the blame of a local farmer", the farmer wouldn't be the only one to have a Paniculum sp. growing in his paddocks.

Just checked and this is a new estate on the north west of Wangaratta, with farm land on their north, and on their west - the predominant weather pattern here will be from the sou'west.

This is another case of what we call a 'tree change', where people go and live in a country town, but as soon as they get there, they want to change it to more like where they came from, rejecting what they once were attracted to. All I can say is god help'em when the next mice plague goes through Wang.

 

[Mythopoeika]

...god help'em when the next mice plague goes through Wang.

[Resists childish temptation]

 

[Mungoman]

[Resists childish temptation]

Nearly everything gets shortened down 'ere...the exceptions are places like Cumnock and Ironknob.

(You, down the back...yes you - out!)

 

[Tigerhawk]

[Resists childish temptation]

Why resist? Why not share it with the rest of the class?