‘Bogan’, ‘ranga’, ‘rurosexual’, ‘budgie smugglers’ among new phrases added to Australian dictionary
Heading Down Under where locals are “dry as a dead dingo’s donger” and beachgoers don “budgie smugglers”, but unsure what this means? Fear not, the latest edition of the Australian National Dictionary offers a primer on all things ‘Straya.
Both phrases along with 6,000 other Australian terms such as bogan, ranga and rurosexual have been added to the country’s dictionary, the first update in almost three decades.
Most Australians are aware I think of the fact that there’s something very distinctive about our language
The second edition of the Australian National Dictionary – a heavy two-tome hardback containing the definitions and histories of 16,000 words, compounds and phrases unique to Australia – was released this week and also includes words from more than 100 indigenous languages.
“It is a lot [of Australianisms],” chief editor Bruce Moore, who has worked on the dictionary for more than two decades, told AFP Thursday.
“Most Australians are aware I think of the fact that there’s something very distinctive about our language, probably in a way that other English-speaking groups are not so much.”
Colourful phrases that made the grade included “dry as a dead dingo’s donger” (very thirsty) and “do a Bradbury” – which refers to Australian Olympian Steven Bradbury, who won the short track gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics after all his rivals crashed.