  Based on my own speech over the years, with some checking in the dictionaries. Not all of these are peculiar to Australian slang, but are important in Lawson's stories, and carry overtones. bagman: commercial traveller Bananaland: Queensland billabong: Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch (a bend in a river cut off by a new channel, but more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely. billy: quintessentially Australian. It is like (or may even be made out of) a medium-sized can, with wire handles and a lid. Used to boil water. If for tea, the leaves are added into the billy itself. The billy may be swung ('to make the leaves settle') or a eucalyptus twig place across the top, more ritual than pragmatic. These stories are supposedly told while the billy is suspended over the fire at night, at the end of a tramp. (Also used in want of other things, for cooking) blackfellow (also, blackman): condescending for Australian Aboriginal blackleg: also scab. Someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a workers' strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. blanky or —-: Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used for “bloody” blucher: a kind of half-boot (named after the Austrian general) LeberechtvonBlÜcher> blued: of a wages cheque: all spent extravagantly—and rapidly. bluey: swag. Supposedly because blankets were mostly blue (so Lawson) boggabri: Probably Aboriginal for several low herbs, esp. Amaranthus mitchelli, Chenopodium pumilio, C. carinatum and Commelina cyanea (scurvy grass); also a town in NSW. [Australian National Dictionary, OUP 1988] What then is a 'tater-marrer' (potato-marrow?). Any help? bowyangs: ties (cord, rope, cloth) put around trouser legs below knee bullocky: Bullock driver. A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to wagons carrying, e.g., wool bales or provisions. Proverbially rough and foul mouthed. bush: originally referred to the low tangled scrubs of the semi-desert regions ('mulga' and '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. cheque: wages for a full season of sheep-shearing; meant to last until the next year, including a family, but often 'blued' in a 'spree' chyack: (chy-ike) like chaffing; to tease, mildly abuse cocky: a farmer, esp. dairy farmers (= 'cow-cockies') cubby-house, or cubby: Children's playhouse (“Wendy house” is commercial form)) Darlinghurst: Sydney suburb, where the gaol was in those days dead marine: empty beer bottle dossing: sleeping rough or poorly (as in a “doss-house”) doughboy: kind of dumpling drover: one who “droves” cattle or sheep. droving: driving on horseback cattle or sheep from where they were fattened to a a city, or later, a rail-head. drown the miller: to add too much water to flour when cooking. Used metaphorically in story. fossick: pick over areas for gold. Not mining as such. half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence. As a coin, a half-crown. half-sov.: a coin worth half a pound (sovereign) Gladesville: Sydney suburb, where the mental hospital used to be goanna: various kinds of monitor lizards. Can be quite a size. Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney humpy: originally an aboriginal shelter (=gunyah); extended to a settler's hut 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”) 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. larrikiness: jocular feminine form leather-jacket: kind of pancake (more often a fish, these days) lucerne: cattle feed-a leguminous plant, alfalfa in US lumper: labourer; esp. on wharves? mallee: dwarfed eucalyptus trees growing in very poor soil and under harsh rainfall conditions. Usually many stems emerging from the ground, creating a low thicket. Maoriland: Lawson's name for New Zealand marine, dead: see 'dead marine' mooching: wandering idly, not going anywhere in particular mug: gullible person, a con-man's 'mark' (potential victim) mulga: Acacia sp. (“wattle” in Australian) especially Acacia aneura; growing in semi-desert conditions. Used as a description of such a harsh region. mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed. In Lawson generally mud (alluvial) rather than rock myall: aboriginal living in a traditional pre-conquest manner narked: annoyed navvies: labourers (especially making roads, railways; originally canals, thus from 'navigators') nobbler: a drink nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled pannikin: metal mug peckish: hungry—usually only mildly so. Use here is thus ironic. poley: a dehorned cow poddy-(calf): a calf separated from its mother but still needing milk rouseabout: labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed. Considered to be, as far as any work is, unskilled labour. sawney: silly, gormless selector: small farmer who under the “Selection Act (Alienation of Land Act”, Sydney 1862 could settle on a few acres of land and farm it, with hope of buying it. As the land had been leased by “squatters” to run sheep, they were NOT popular. The land was usually pretty poor, and there was little transport to get food to market, many, many failed. (The same mistake was made after WWI when returned soldiers were given land to starve on.) shanty: besides common meaning of shack it refers to an unofficial (and illegal) grog-shop; in contrast to the legal 'pub'. spieler: con artist sliprails: in lieu of a gate, the rails of a fence may be loosely socketed into posts, so that they may 'let down' (i.e. one end pushed in socket, the other end resting on the ground). See 'A Day on a Selection' spree: prolonged drinking bout—days, weeks. stoush: a fight strike: perhaps the Shearers' strike in Barcaldine, Queensland, 1891 [gjc] sundowner: a swagman (see) who is NOT looking for work, but a “handout”. Lawson explains the term as referring to someone who turns up at a station at sundown, just in time for “tea” i.e. the evening meal. In view of the Great Depression of the time, these expressions of attitude are probably unfair, but the attitudes are common enough even today. Surry Hills: Sydney inner suburb (home for this transcriber) swagman (swaggy): Generally, anyone who is walking in the “outback” with a swag. (See “The Romance of the Swag” in Children of the Bush, also a PG Etext) Lawson also restricts it at times to those whom he considers to be tramps, not looking for work but for “handouts”. See 'travellers'. 'swelp: mild oath of affirmation = “so help me [God]” travellers: “shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work” (Lawson). whare: small Maori house—is it used here for European equivalent? Help anyone? whipping the cat: drunk End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of While the Billy Boils, by Henry Lawson *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE THE BILLY BOILS *** ***** This file should be named 7144.txt or 7144.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: /7/1/4/7144/ Produced by Geoffrey Cowling Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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