AUSTRALIANS have always had a pretty unique way with words, but Parade was surprised to see what words and phrases have recently been added to the Australian National Dictionary.
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Additions include “ranga”, “firie”, “bogan”, “snag”, “straight to the pool room” (another indication of the enduring legacy of that classic film The Castle), “carry on like a pork chop” and “I don't know if I'm Arthur or Martha”.
There also a few Parade thinks are best left unpublished.
But, of the new 6000 words and phases that were added, Parade's favourite would have to be “do a Bradbury”.
Everyone remembers Steven Bradbury taking the gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics after all his opponents hit the ice.
Parade can't wait to see what other words and phrases get added next.
Word or two to the air out there
IT’S always a bit of a worry when you come home from work and your significant other is having an animated conversation with herself.
That was Parade’s experience this week, when he came into the lounge room to find the significant other in question standing near the heater, hands waving about, talking passionately into the empty air in front of her.
Parade’s first instinct was to apologise for interrupting and go into a different room to let the one-person conversation take its course.
But curiosity got the better of Parade and he stopped and listened for a bit – which is when he spied the mobile phone in his significant other’s hands and the thin cords coming out of her ears.
Yes, she was talking to someone who wasn’t herself – thankfully.
That one can be filed under “a sign of the times”.
Grisly name for a gruesome history
HERE’S a geographical titbit Parade picked up in a book this week: there is supposedly a “man-eaters junction” on the rail line between Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya.
That grisly name comes from the man-eating lions that preyed on workers building the railway back in the late 1890s.
It’s not a name to inspire a traveller’s confidence, is it?