Inspired by something I said last night when complaining about an achievement at work and the only way I could think to describe it was “pure frippery.”
Inspired by something I said last night when complaining about an achievement at work and the only way I could think to describe it was “pure frippery.”
My parents emigrated from Aus/NZ just before I was born, so I inherited a bunch of weird down-under, outdated vocabulary.
“What are you fossicking around in the pantry for?” “Did you find a few skerrigs of chocolate?” “I need to use the dunny.” “That guy in car dealership was apoplectic.”
Lots of other turns of phrase, but - with the possible exception of “dunny” are legit words.
EDIT: OK. A few others, I still use ‘blasted’ as an adjective. If my kids do something ridiculous, “Jesus wept, child,” sometimes comes out of my mouth. Then a bunch of, “running around like a sprayed blowfly,” or, “wandering around like a lost soul.”
I’m a cultural Kiwi and don’t recognize half of these.
In the case of dunny, I was trained on calling it the loo.
Fossicking and skerrig are related to mining activities, so may be more localized to areas were the gold rush was big. I confirmed they’re actual words.
TIL there was an Australian gold rush.
Yeah, in between the gold rush in San Fransisco, and the gold rush in British Columbia.
My kids and I use dunny now because of Bluey.
Legitimately one of my favourite words.