`mallee'), and hence equivalent to
"outback". Now used generally for remote rural areas ("the
bush") and scrubby forest.
bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires.
bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from
cities, "in the bush". (today: a "bushy")
bushranger: an Australian "highwayman", who lived in the `bush'--
scrub--and attacked especially gold carrying coaches and banks.
Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures--cf. Ned
Kelly--but usually very violent.
bunyip: Aboriginal monster, inhabiting waterholes, billabongs
particularly. Adopted into European legends.
caser: Five shillings (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the
pound ("quid")). As a coin, a crown piece.
chaffing: teasing, mocking good-humouredly
churchyarder: Sounding as if dying--ready for the churchyard = cemetery
crimson = gory: literary substitutes for "bloody"--the "colonial oath",
unacceptable in polite company. Why, is a complete mystery.
Popularly explained as contraction of "by Our Lady". Unproved.
In reproducing (badly) a German's pronunciation of Australian,
Lawson retains the word, but spells it "pluddy".
dood: Dude. A classy/cool dresser.
drover: one who "droves"
droving: driving on horseback cattle or sheep from where they were
fattened to a a city, or later, a rail-head.
fiver: a five pound note
gory, see crimson
Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney
humpy: rough shack
half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence. As a coin, a half-crown.
jackaroo: (Jack + kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)--someone, in early
days a new immigrant from England, learning to work on a
sheep/cattle station (U.S. "ranch".)
jim-jams: the horrors, d.t.'s
jumbuck: a sheep (best known from Waltzing Matilda: "where's that
jolly jumbuck, you've got in your tucker bag".)
larrikin: anything from a disrespectful young man to a violent member
of a gang ("push"). Was considered a major social problem in
Sydney of the 1880's to 1900. The _Bulletin_, a magazine in
which much of Lawson was published, spoke of the "aggressive,
soft-hatted stoush brigade". Anyone today who is disrespectful of
authority or convention is said to show the larrikin element in the
Australian character.
lucerne: Alfalfa in US
mallee: dwarfed eucalyptus trees g