Susan Butler, pub., James Lambert, ed. - Macquarie Australian Dictionary

Susan Butler, publisher,

James Lambert, general editor,

Macquarie Australian Dictionary: Complete & Unabridged

Macquarie University, NSW: The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, 2004

Pp. xi + 223. Paperback. $19-95 ISBN 1 876429 52 6

Librarians may find this volume a problem. Its formal title is given above, but the text and the back cover make clear that it is the Macquarie Australian Slang Dictionary, confirmed by the spoof warning that its contents may offend. There is indeed a larger section under the letter F than in the average glossary of English, but readers will probably be amused rather than shocked, especially by the light, informative notes that accompany many entries. In Australia, as elsewhere, much slang reflects masculine insecurity, which accounts for the inventive clusters relating to defecation, homosexuality and masturbation. But because Australian slang reflects many influences ─ Aboriginal, American, British as well as local inventiveness ─ precision is indeed required. Thus ‘ackers’ may refer to testicles or to university teachers, while it is important to distinguish between ‘yacker’ (chatter) and ‘yakka’ (hard work). Devotees of a distinctive national identity will perhaps find it discouraging to realise just how much Australian slang is derived from Britain, although Cockney-style rhyming slang is locally generated. ‘Werris’, for instance, can refer either to urination or to a person from Greece, but it is odd to note that the brief Edwardian flowering of Bristol City football club still finds an echo in allusion to Australian female anatomy. Surprisingly, too, ‘snog’ apparently only made its way to Australia in the 1980s, by which time the lack of any felt need for extended preliminaries to sexual intercourse had rendered it a quaint term in the Old Dart. Australian popular vocabulary is also affected by simultaneous global developments. Urban four-wheel drive vehicles are ‘Toorak tractors’ in Melbourne, with similarly smart suburbs conscripted in other capital cities. They are, I believe, known as ‘Chelsea tractors’ in London. Genuinely Australian terminology seems in retreat. It is good to see ‘get off at Redfern’ (the last stop before Sydney’s Central Railway Station) still in use for coitus interruptus, but one wonders how many such terms, like ‘chunder’, owe their survival to Barry Humphries. Less cheerfully, ‘darg’ (output targets, often worker-imposed) seems to be dying out, while the pastoral ‘yow’ and ‘snagger’ get their guernseys mainly to help make sense of a famous folk song. But Click Go The Shears! was only published in 1946. Sixty years on, the vernacular seems to be flooded with Americanisms. Lambert argues that Australian English is in no danger of being taken over by the Yanks, since borrowings are promptly naturalised. Let us hope he is fair dinkum.