There are 20 results of your search for P.
AB
A cheap and disgusting dish sold at the North Adelaide Burger Bar and its rival on O'Connell St, North Adelaide, the Blue and White Fish Cafe. An AB (short for a contentious medical procedure) is a serve of chips with tomato sauce, vinegar, salt, chilli sauce and any other topping desired. It may have originated with the drunken appetites of students from nearby St Mark's College, an Anglican residential college for tertiary students. A properly garnished AB makes a pie floater look like a fluffy dessert: Just give us an AB, mate. Yeah the lot thanks. Am I ever p----d!
Contributor's comments: The Blue and White AB's consist of chips, yiros meat, BBQ sauce, tomato sauce and garlic sauce. They are usually eaten while drunk. St Mark's college eats at the Burger Bar, while Lincoln college eats at the Blue and White. Both the Blue & White and the Burger Bar claim to have invented the AB. The AB takes it's name from after-birth, which it resembles.
Contributor's comments: I've encountered "ABT" in my wife's family in Sydney. They claim it is a medical term from the 1960s where a doctor trying to get rid of a patient in need of a Bex and a good lie down would give them a script with the letters ABT. Apparently stands for "Any Bloody Thing".
acker1
noun a large playing marble; alley.
Contributor's comments: (from SA) Never heard ackers before - always alleys or doogs.
Contributor's comments: As a child in Melbourne, we used to call the large marbles 'tomboller'. Not sure how you'd spell it.
Contributor's comments: Never used in SA as far as I know. We only used Alleys, Doogs, Catseyes, and Tom Bowlers for large glass ones.
Contributor's comments: [SA informant] Never heard acker before either.
Contributor's comments: In Tassie, we kept an acker in our marble collection. NB never came across a 'doog'.
ackers
(from King Island) testicles: He was hit in the ackers while playing cricket.
Contributor's comments: Being hit in the aggates was the expression we used.
Contributor's comments: Here in the UK we say "knackers": "ackers" sounds like a contraction of this. In the Midlands region of England, "ackers" means "money".
bathers
swimming clothes: Put on your bathers; we're going for a swim. Compare cossie, costume, swimmers, swimsuit, togs.
Contributor's comments: This is used in South Australia.
Contributor's comments: In South Australia, we have always referred to swimming attire as "bathers" or, sometimes in the case for girls, "swim-suit".
Contributor's comments: This is also used in WA.
Contributor's comments: Bathers has always been used in Perth where I was born and lived until 8 years ago.
Contributor's comments: Growing up and living in Perth, we have always used the term 'bathers' when swimming. Sometimes the term 'bathing suit' is used.
Contributor's comments: A true West Aussie only uses the word 'bathers' for swimming costumes, etc. If they use any other words for bathers such as 'sluggos' it is only for comic or ironic effect.
Contributor's comments: Also used in Tasmania.
Contributor's comments: BATHERS - definitely the dominant term in Vic.
Contributor's comments: Definitely used in Mildura, Victoria, where I grew up!
Contributor's comments: I always put on my swimmers or Cossies to go to the beach (Sydney) but my wife from Melbourne always calls them Bathers - It might be something to do with the fact they don't have surf in Melbourne so it is like a bath.
Contributor's comments: I've always lived in Melbourne, Victoria and we have always used the word bathers to refer to a swim suit.
Contributor's comments: In NSW we mainly use the word swimmers. I thought bathers was an old fashioned word!
Contributor's comments: Synonymous to togs, swimmers, trunks, cossie (I forgot to take my bathers to the pool so I skinny dipped). This was in use in Broken Hill. However also used the word togs. Dad from Sydney, Mum from Melbourne, so my current postcode [4061, Brisbane] is probably irrelevant except for the fact that no-one here knows what I mean when I say bathers, or for that matter yeast bun or fritz.
Contributor's comments: Term "bathers" also in use in Brisbane.
Contributor's comments: My parents used this term - Mum from Tasmania, Dad from Sydney - but my friends in Sydney always thought it was old-fashioned and didn't understand it.
Contributor's comments: We have moved up to Sydney from Victoria, where for all my own childhood, and my children's experience, bathers was the term for swimming apparel. At school in Sydney, they are treated like foreigners when they say bathers, as the term seems to be 'swimming costume", which we had never used in Vic.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in NSW (Sydney) with Victorian parents and used this term, but the locals tended to use swimmers or cossies.
Contributor's comments: Used in Sydney.
Contributor's comments: Definitely used in Tasmania!
Contributor's comments: People in the ACT of my vintage (b. 1944) use various words for swimming attire, e.g. "bathers", "cossie", "Speedos" (was mostly men, but now covers competitive swimmers), "swim-suit" and when I was little the more formal "swimming costume" or "costume" (no doubt the word from which "cossies" is derived).
Contributor's comments: bathers is a term used by 80% of Northern Territorians 15% use swimmers and 5% use any other weird terms.
Contributor's comments: I looked under cossie and found no reference to bathers, the most common term in Western Australia.
Contributor's comments: Disagree with "bathers" being used in Sydney. If it ever is, it's due to that person having an interstate connection eg. parent.
Contributor's comments: Known as togs on King Island in the 60s early 70s.
Contributor's comments: Also used in UK.
Contributor's comments: Have almost always used "bathers", occasionally "trunks" - brought up in Melbourne.
Contributor's comments: Bathers as in "bathing costume" is the Victorian rival to the NSW "Cossie".
Contributor's comments: I was raised in Brisbane and only ever spoke of "togs" for swimming. Only people who came from other States used "bathers" or "swimmers". I now live in Melbourne and have learned to use "bathers".
Contributor's comments: When I was a child on the beaches around Portsea and Sorrento in Port Phillip Bay we always called swimming costumes 'bathers'.
Contributor's comments: My grandparents and parents are all from Melbourne. My parents moved to Townsville. I remember using the term bathers and/or togs and friends not knowing what I was talking about.
Contributor's comments: Disagree with "bathers" being a Brisbane regionalism. Until recently would only have been used by a person from or with connections outside Queensland. Queensland kids would have laughed, we all called them "togs".
Contributor's comments: Is this just used in Western Australia?
Contributor's comments: Definitely only togs in Brisbane. I never heard any other word until I met someone from Sydney who called it a cossie.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Brisbane and always called them swimmers, but I had NSW parents, so that is probably why I don't call them togs, like many Queenslanders do.
Contributor's comments: I'm originally from Melbourne and I always put on my bathers before swimming (as did my Melbourne friends) while my Sydney born partner always puts on his swimmers.
Contributor's comments: Again I can't imagine why we have so many words for one single item of clothing. Heard of these words in 1978
Contributor's comments: Having lived in in NSW, then SA for my school life and now back in NSW as an adult, 'bathers' rule in SA and 'swimmers' in NSW, bathers has an older sedate Victorian notion of aquatic activity - swimming is an active pursuit - you thus wear 'swimmers', boardshorts, dick-dacks or lolly bags.
Contributor's comments: pronounced bay-thers.
Contributor's comments: Born and raised in Melbourne, in the '50s, the usual word was 'togs', but if you were 'bunging on side' a bit, you might say 'bathers'. When I went into the airforce, the girls from the different states called many different things by different names.
Contributor's comments: I didn't see 'bathers' in with togs, cossie etc. Surely 'bathers' is the dominant term - or is it just me?
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Geelong, and we used bathers, though the term togs were also used.
Contributor's comments: The ONLY word for what you wear when you go swimming in SA! Recent additions are speedos for competition or boardies for the beach. However when wearing your bathers what you do is never called bathing, swimming pools are never called swimming baths - very old fashioned!
Contributor's comments: in WA, they're "bathers". First time I was in the eastern states, someone told me to bring my "togs" with me. I was confused, thinking they were some type of shoes (clogs)!
Contributor's comments: This is the equivalent for 'togs' or 'cozzie' or 'swimmers' in Adelaide.
Contributor's comments: In Hobart we always wore bathers to go swimming. Still do.
Contributor's comments: Bathers in WA for bathing costume.
Contributor's comments: [Melbourne informant] What you wear to go swimming in: "Chuck on ya bathers, and lets hit the beach."
Contributor's comments: Melbourne, Victoria 40s - 50s: bathers = swimming costume = cozzies, togs: "Will you take your bathers with you on the bush walk?"
Contributor's comments: [Perth informant] What those in the east call cossie/swimmers/togs: "When I go to the beach for a swim I wear my bathers."
Contributor's comments: swimsuit: "Don't forget your bathers!" (used in Perth)
Contributor's comments: [Melbourne informant] Same as togs, swimmers: "I am wearing my bathers to go to the beach."
Contributor's comments: I grew up literally living at a Brisbane suburban public pool in the 1960s and 70s. I never heard anyone use the term 'bathers' unless they came from interstate. We always said 'togs'. We definitely did not call them 'cossies' or 'swimmers, terms I learnt when I moved to Sydney in the 1980s. When I lived in Melbourne a decade later, I heard 'bathers' and 'togs'. Now back in Sydney living at the beach I still say 'togs' and occasionally 'swimmers'. As for Speedos, that's what we called them in Brisbane at least. Although the male version (even now in Sydney) was 'sluggos'.
Contributor's comments: Bathers were what we wore in Victoria, however my father would refer to togs and he had lived in Qld. Also have heard togs used in reference to sports gear in general, as for kit.
Contributor's comments: [Wimmera and Mallee informant] Have heard it used, but mostly called togs, then later we boys would use 'footy nicks'.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Sydney and "bathers" was the main word used by my family. My father also used "togs". Both parents were from Sydney but father had spent a few years in Melbourne and on the NSW-QLD border.
Contributor's comments: Definitely used in Tasmania - when I met my future husband, a Sydneysider, he fell about laughing at the term, thinking it sounded like something from the previous century. He used 'swimmers' - or occasionally 'cossies' which I thought sounded quainter than 'bathers'.
Contributor's comments: I first heard a swim suit called "bithers" (bathers) by some people from Frankston VIC when I was working in Sri Lanka around 1970. Later, I emigrated to Sydney and I do not remember hearing it again.
benzene
petrol: He's gone to get some benzene in the car.
Contributor's comments: My grandfather used this word in Cairns in the 60s.
Contributor's comments: My grandparents used this to refer to petrol in the 60s, 70s and 80s in Tully in Far north Queensland. I was told it was what they used in the second world war. Interestingly the italian word for petrol is Benzina and there are a lot of italian immigrants there.
Contributor's comments: BENSIN or BENZIN is petrol in PNG and a lot of SE Asia except Singapore where it is called OIL.
blacks
Full (ie non-provisional) driver's licence. First you get your L plates, then your P plates, then your blacks: Joe's on his blacks now.
bommy knocker
The seed pod of the liquidambar tree.(Originally a word from a large print children's book describing a giant's spiked club. The children likened the seed pods of the liquidambar trees in the playground to the giant's club, and the name passed on to each new generation of children.) (This is probably particular to this school [in the Tamworth region]): He threw a bommy knocker at me. (Child to teacher) See castor oil.
Contributor's comments: We also used the term 'bommy knocker' at my primary school (at Ulong, in the Coffs Harbour region). It was certainly in use in the late '80s, as indeed was the book about the giant and his club. 'Bommy knocker' was also used to refer to a club made by stuffing a jumper into its own sleeve.
Contributor's comments: This term is in a well known reading series. Involves hitting the head of a giant with a cosh-like instrument. Humorous in implication.
Contributor's comments: My son aged 11 says a bommy knocker is one of those blow-up plastic "show toys" that is shaped like a hammer or baseball bat.
Contributor's comments: At our primary school (Faulconbridge) our kindergarten teacher told us about the bommy knockers that fell off liquidamber trees about ten years ago, and all the older kids in the school knew about that so it must have been going in the 80's.
Contributor's comments: Bommy Knockers: My neighbourhood at St. Marys, NSW, has liquid amber trees and we all call the seed pods "bommy knockers", and presently the youngest is five years old...so the tradition still lives on.
Contributor's comments: Dommy knocker was the biggest marble used in a game of marbles in Cairns where I grew up in the 50`s.
Editor's comments: Does anyone else know the variant 'dommy knocker'?
Contributor's comments: My cousins and I called liquidamber seed pods "castor oils" growing up in Merriwa. I don't know whether it was more widely used.
Contributor's comments: I'm a Dubbo boy of the 70's & 80's and I've never heard of it.
Contributor's comments: My children always called those large inflatable baseball bats at the local shows 'bommy knockers'. Also my son always referred to chicken drumsticks (his favourite food as a little fella) as 'bommy knockers". This was obviously because of the similarity in shape.
Contributor's comments: Not common in several primary state schools in north Tas. 40-50 years ago, but certainly not unknown. Used by one girl to describe a hexagonal wooden stick used in days past when washing clothes in coppers.
Bubs
Alternative for Prep, the first year of school: Zachary started school in Bubs this year.
Contributor's comments: 'Bubs' was commonly used in Perth in 50's & 60's.
Contributor's comments: In NSW, it is called "Kindy", for Kindergarten.
Contributor's comments: Bubs was commonly used in WA in the 1940s and 50s to refer to the First Year of Primary schooling.
Contributor's comments: Bubs was also used in WA in my day, including 1st Bubs and 2nd Bubs referring to infant school classes.
Contributor's comments: The term "Bubs" was widely used in Perth when I started school in the forties. It continued in use through the fifties, but my recollection id that it faded from use in the sixties and is not in use now.
Contributor's comments: The word "bubs" was short for "babies". When I went to primary school in Mornington, Victoria (1960-67), "Babies" or "Bubs" was the word used for the prep year kids at the Catholic School. In the State School, the equivalent term was "Preps". Another difference between the State and Catholic schools was the "canteen" at the State School was the "tuck shop" at the Catholic school. I went to both schools.
Contributor's comments: [Gippsland, Vic informant] Common in my youth. I rarely, if ever, hear it now.
Contributor's comments: This expresson, in my experience, dates at least from the early 1950's at Heidelberg, Victoria.
Contributor's comments: The term "bubs" for pre-primary/kindergarten classes was common in Perth WA during the 1930/1940s & may have continued well beyond that period. My experience of the area ceased in 1953 when I moved to Sydney.
Contributor's comments: I started in 'bubs' in 1959. It was also called 'beginners'. 'Prep' is now the accepted title. My 'bubs' year was at Huntingdale State School, suburb of Melbourne.
Contributor's comments: By the 1970s and 80s, 'kindy' had replaced 'bubs' for the year before Grade One primary school in W.A.
Contributor's comments: The term 'bubs' was used all throughout my primary school days from 61 to 67 and referred to preparatory grade. I haven't heard the term being used for several years now.
Contributor's comments: I was in bubs in Ballarat in 1962. And, best of all, my teacher was Miss Bubb.
Contributor's comments: The term bubs goes back a very long way. I started school in the bubs in the early fifties and my teacher had taken all of the previous generation through the same year a generation before.
Contributor's comments: The meaning of Bubs I grew up with is a baby, or quite often the youngest member of the family is called "bubs" from an older sibling.
bung fritz
noun a type of fritz (sausage).
Contributor's comments: Never heard it called "Bung" Fritz. Always only "Fritz". The word "Bung" was used in conjunction with "Hole" as an aid to causing constipation when talking about cheese.
Contributor's comments: Not to be confused with ordinary fritz which comes pre-sliced from the smallgoods section of the supermarket.
Contributor's comments: 'Bung Fritz' is a style of fritz that has an orange skin, and no other packaging (like a sausage). Bung fritz would be more common in a butchers shop. There is another style of fritz that has a plastic 'skin' which replaces the orange skin. This fritz would be more common in a supermarket.
Contributor's comments: "Bung fritz" is definitely used in SA, esp up north where I came from. My grandfather used to rave about it.
Contributor's comments: Growing up in country South Australia in the 1970s, I heard the words 'fritz' and 'bung fritz' used interchangeably (although the short-hand 'fritz' was used more commonly)
Contributor's comments: The words "Bung Fritz" is used in SA as a term for the fritz with an orange coating, sold in Butchers and some supermarkets...specifically butcher Fritz.
Contributor's comments: I have certainly heard of "bung" fritz - it is the fritz which has a natural casing (orange in colour), most often seen hanging in a traditional butcher's shop, and used to distinguish from the plastic wrapped type of sausage which although called fritz is not the real "bung" fritz. When you go into the butcher's shop you can ask for the whole bung of the fritz, or just a piece. When I was young, all children were given a piece of fritz by the butcher when they went into the shop with their parent(s). Our local (Adelaide metro area) butcher still does this. I have also heard the term "bung hole", but consider this to be a different usage from "bung" fritz.
Contributor's comments: I have heard fritz referred to as bung fritz. Why 'bung' I don't know. We usually just call it fritz and have since I was a child.
Contributor's comments: I'm from NSW and have recently moved to Mt Gambier, in the South East of South Australia. Here they call Devon - Bung Fritz, not just Fritz.
Contributor's comments: Mmmm fritz. I think the product is unique to South Australia. I grew up there in the 70s and the butcher always gave me a slice of fritz while mum was placing her order. The similar devon found here in NSW is a different product and not fit for dogs. When I reached my mid-teens, I had a boyfriend who was an apprentice butcher. He told me all about making fritz and I haven't touched it since.
Contributor's comments: Bung fritz was the 'proper fritz' found in the butcher, covered in an orange skin rather than the plastic more commonly found these days. The butcher always offered a slice to the kids.
Contributor's comments: Bung fritz usually refers to the sausage produced in butchers; it usually has an orange skin and comes in large coils tied with twine. The term bung being used to diferentiate it from the inferior mass produced fritz which looks like dog sausage. Have yet to find bung fritz outside of South Australia and Alice Springs.
Contributor's comments: Always just known as fritz for short but "real" fritz was the type with orange skin. The only place I've seen it named as bung fritz is at Woolies and only stocked in SA. Similar, but not as nice items include devon, luncheon meat, strassburg, etc. Can also be bought as smiley fritz or enjoyed as fried fritz.
butcher
noun a small glass of beer (approx. 200ml) served in SA. Compare glass, handle, middy1, middy2, pony, pot, schooner1, schooner2, seven. [German Becher drinking vessel]
Contributor's comments: I thought this refers to a 200 ml glass for a beer.
Contributor's comments: This is not really used in SA - more common in Vic I thought.
Contributor's comments: The background to this is that the butchers from the old East End Market used to drop in to the pub in their breaks, but they only had time for a small beer, hence a "butcher".
Contributor's comments: [Adelaide informant] Butcher has always been the name for a small glass of beer, smaller than a schooner, larger than a pony.
Contributor's comments: [Adelaide informant] A glass of beer smaller than a schooner: (on a pub crawl, to the bartender) "A butcher of sparkling thanks."
castor oil
a seed pod of a liquidambar tree. See bommy knocker.
Contributor's comments: My cousins and I called liquidamber seed pods "castor oils" growing up in Merriwa. I don't know whether it was more widely used.
central school
noun a state school in a rural area which provides both primary and lower secondary education. Compare area school, consolidated school, district school.
Contributor's comments: I have always known this term to denote schools which offer education Kindergarten to year 10, but not years 11 & 12.
Contributor's comments: Central School was an official term in Vic for many years.
Contributor's comments: In Northern Ontario, Canada, we use 'central school', as well as 19 others on your regional list for the Hunter Valley and North Coast.
Contributor's comments: This was also used in Victoria in the 60s - I remember Spring Rd Central in Caulfield.
Contributor's comments: The term Central School was quite common in Melbourne from at least the 20s through to the 60s and 70s. My father went to Nth Fitzroy Central School in the 20s and I attended Camberwell Central School in the 50s and 60s. Contrary to your definition, Central Schools in Melbourne were combined primary school grades (Prep to Grade 6) and Form 1 and 2 high school. One then went to a "proper" high school for Form 3 to 6. It is interesting to note that Malvern Central School is now know as Malvern Central Primary School and Malvern Central Secondary School (both on the same site in Malvern) - presumably in an effort to retain some of their history. Again most people who grew up in Melbourne during the 20s through to the 60s and 70s would be familiar with the term "Central School".
Contributor's comments: The term central school was used in Melbourne to refer to a school that went up to year 8 or form 2. I went to Gardenvale Central School from 1976 to 1981 and there were several other central schools in the early 80's.
Contributor's comments: Central Schools exist all through NSW; years ago they used to be kindergarten to Year 10; now they are Kingergarten to Year 12. Having said that, though I believe that Newcastle Central School (where Broadmeadow School of Performing Arts now is) was only the first three years of high school, i.e. Years 1,2,3, ending with the Intermediate Certificate. Initially it was boys' only; Cooks Hill was, I believe, the girls' equivalent. They date back to the days of Boys/Girls' Highs (academic top); Tech and Hunter (next level down) both going to the Leaving Certificate; then the next layer of ability went to these other schools. All this information is based on listening to people who went to school in Newcastle in the 60's. Would bear checking with the Dept. of Education, if appropriate. All the schools in question became co-educational.
Contributor's comments: I had a friend who went to Molong central school near Orange in central west NSW and then went to the Orange High School in year 1 (7) but he had other friends who stayed at Molong till year 4 (10). They travelled on the Molong bus (so there were a large number of them) for an hour each way to Orange every day in order to do to do the HSC years as these were not available at Molong Central School in the early 70's.
Contributor's comments: In the Melbourne context Central Schools went to Form 2 (Year 8). They acted in some ways as feeder schools for MacRoberston Girls High School and Melbourne High School. Since both of these schools had competitive entry exams for Form 3 (Year 9) the Central Schools had an academic - 'exam cramming' - focus to their curriculum. This lead to the development of some alternative schools in the 1970's. The famous Ardoch High School was formed originally from the South Yarra Annexe. Which was part of South Yarra Central School. The annexe was for the low achieving stream of students who would not have gained entry into Melbourne or Mac Rob High Schools.
Contributor's comments: I attended St Josephs Central School in Oberon, which is a K - 10 instution. We got together anually with 5 other central schools for the Quinn Cup. The other central schools were in Wellington, Blaney, Coonabarabran, Cowra and Mudgee.
Contributor's comments: Yeoval Central School was only a k-10 school until about 10 years ago where the Yrs 11 & 12 were added by Distance Education and is linked to several other schools by computers & phone lines.
Contributor's comments: In the Victorian Catholic School system in the fifties, a central school was a special year 8 only school. Entry was by scholarship, the Diocesan Scholarship. The purpose of the central schools was to cram students for the Victorian Junior Government Scholarship.
cut laps
What you do on a Friday night in your car, usually when on your 'P' plates. ie drive around the main streets until the police move you on: Have you seen John? Yeah, he's cutting laps.
Contributor's comments: Used in Mildura during the 80's. Often included the street, ie Cutting laps of Langers (Langtree Ave).
devon1
noun a large, mild-flavoured, precooked sausage, usually sliced thinly and eaten cold. Compare beef Belgium, Belgium sausage, Byron sausage, Empire sausage, fritz, German sausage, luncheon sausage, polony, pork German, Strasburg, wheel meat, Windsor sausage.
Contributor's comments: 'Devon' is also used in Melbourne, where I grew up. It is not the same sort of sausage as 'strasburg'. Devon is the mildest possible sausage, with a very bland texture. Strasburg has identifiable lumps of meat (and whatever) in it. Both terms are in use in Southern Tablelands/ACT, for different types of sausage.
Editor's comments: Can anyone else enlighten us on the difference between devon and strasburg?
Contributor's comments: I just wanted to let you know that the term 'devon' is not widespread across NSW. I spent my primary school years in Broken Hill (part of NSW) but never heard of 'devon' until we moved to Orange. We always called it 'fritz' in Broken Hill and I hope that is still true so please change your distribution map.
Contributor's comments: Since moving to SA from NSW, we've discovered that Broken Hill is actually part of SA! They share the same time zone, and Broken Hill's weather is always part of SA weather forecasts. It's not surprising that devon is called fritz in Broken Hill.
Contributor's comments: Cold sausage meat was always devon where I grew up in the Lismore area in the 50's and 60's.
Contributor's comments: Growing up in Lismore, we used the phrase "Byron Sausage" almost exclusively to describe Devon/Windsor/Whatever.
Contributor's comments: This word is also used in Hobart.
Contributor's comments: I grew up with devon in NSW but find it as polony in WA.
Contributor's comments: We had Devon at Forster in NSW. Luncheon had bits of pea and carrot in it.
Contributor's comments: Broken Hill and as far east as Wilcannia tends to follow the language of South Australia more than that of NSW. Historically, the area has always been closer to SA. Adelaide being the major source of supply of just about all commodities. Port Pirie was developed to smelt the output from Broken Hill and the produce tended to flow down the Murray for Wilcannia (on the riverboats).
Contributor's comments: Suggest Broken Hill use of Fritz is due to links with SA where fritz is common. I believe that this is known as Luncheon in Tasmania.
Contributor's comments: The word devon is also used in Tasmania for the processed meat referred to.
Contributor's comments: I suspect fritz as a term for devon is more a South Australian thing - Broken Hill having pretty strong connections to Adelaide. It's presumably something to do with the German community there. In Dubbo we'd never heard of fritz until a guy who had lived in Adelaide (as well as another part of NSW) moved to town. I distinctly remember his saying that fritz was what they called devon there.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Sydney, where it was called devon, To me it has always had connotations of cheap meat that you only ever used to get it at school canteens!! That's how I remember it most.
Contributor's comments: In Tas we were fed Belgium sausage.
Contributor's comments: When I was growing up in Newcastle NSW we always called it devon.
Contributor's comments: In Sydney, "devon" is a processed, pale pink and bland meat supplied in a large cylindrical roll to the shopkeeper. It is sliced thinly. Kids here often eat it with tomato sauce in a sandwich. Strassbourg is a spicier processed meat which is a medium pink colour. It has darker pink flecks and fat flecks, and is more like a mild salami in flavour. Devon looks like a smaller version of mortadella, but without the large fatty pieces (and a milder, soapier taste, similar to frankfurts, I guess).
Contributor's comments: In Newcastle we ate 'empire'. It was not until about 1980 that 'devon' came into usage.
Contributor's comments: I grew up on 'devon' in NSW, had it as 'fritz' in SA, and then as 'polony' in WA.
Contributor's comments: Never having been schooled in Broken Hill myself, I can confirm that the word "Devon" has long been used to describe an otherwise non-descript sausage mix served (by the name "Devon") in every major brand of supermarket along the coast of NSW ever since I was a young child (I am C1963). I remember long days at Newcastle Beach as a 5-7 year old sustained by "Devon" and tomato sauce sandwiches and I can still buy it in any supermarket by the name - Devon!
Contributor's comments: When I was growing up in Brisbane we always called it luncheon sausage, but I notice that now in the supermarket it is known as devon.
Contributor's comments: Beef Devon was common term for processed sausage meat in Gippsland in the 50s and 60s. It is pale bland bland and very finely textured. Strasbourg is much spicier and coarser in texture.
Contributor's comments: Growing up in Sydney it was always devon. In Perth it is polony.
Contributor's comments: in Newcastle when I was a kid it was called empire.
Contributor's comments: I think that what people in NSW call devon is similar to what Victorians would call luncheon loaf or meat.
Contributor's comments: Always called it devon in Melb in 1960s. It was't considered "cheap", in fact it was rather a treat to have a devon and sauce sandwich for lunch. My parents told me that it used to be called german sausage but the name was changed during one of the World Wars because of anti-German prejudice.
Contributor's comments: Prepared luncheon meat from deli, usually sliced - a favourite with children: "In Sydney I would order only devon from my local deli."
dixie
noun a small container (approx. 100 ml) of ice-cream. Compare bucket, dandy.
Contributor's comments: I have heard this used in Brisbane. Wasn't/Isn't it a brand name?
Contributor's comments: This was also army slang (1960's) for a small metal mess dish, usually taken on bivouac, etc.
Editor's comments: In the ice-cream bucket sense it may have been a brandname, though we don't have any evidence of this. However, the word itself originally comes from the Indian language Hindi and is generally applied to small metal containers for cooking and eating food when camping, etc. ONLY the "ice-cream bucket" sense is a regionalism.
Contributor's comments: Dixie is an old military expression. It refers to the two nested rectangular aluminium food preparation and eating containers. Together with knife fork and spoon (eating irons) they formed one's mess kit (as distinct from the mess kit which one wore to a do).
Contributor's comments: Dixie was a brand name used by Peter's Ice Cream in the 50's for their small bucket of ice cream.
Contributor's comments: Dixie was (and maybe still is) the brand name of vanilla ice cream which came in a small tub. It was made by one of Peters or Streets, not sure which.
Contributor's comments: 'Dixie' or 'dixie cup' was definitely a brand name for a small tub of vanilla icecream, in Melbourne in the 1980's. They were sold with a small wooden spoon, and were made by one of the major icecream companies (Streets/Peters/Pauls - I can't remember which).
Contributor's comments: 'Dixie' may have been a brand name originally, but from the 1950s it fairly soon became generic in Melbourne to mean an ice cream sold in a little tub made from strengthened paper or cardboard or later of plastic.
Contributor's comments: I knew the word dixie in two senses - as a general term for a small tub of ice cream like the Peter's Dixie Cup, and as a dish. Dad was an Army cook and referred to doing the dishes as "dixie bashing".
Contributor's comments: We always used to be given a dixie of ice cream each when our parents took us to the pictures in the 50s. I rmember the word 'dixie' was printed on the lid and sides of the dixie. The ones we had were made by Peters. It might have been a brand name, but I always thought they put 'dixie' on it because that's what it was. Like putting 'lemonade' on a can of lemonade.
DPs
speedo style bathers.
Contributor's comments: [Sydney informant] I remember during my teens a friend's mother referring to DPs. When I asked what they were, my friend explained that his mother was too polite to say "dick pokers." I'd heard of dick stickers before, but this one was new to me.
Contributor's comments: I came from Wollongong, and the term most often used was DP's - short for Dick Pointers (for obvious reasons).
Contributor's comments: When I was at school we used to call them D.P.'s - Dick Pokers, Wollongong NSW.
engine mount
Term used to describe vanilla slice at Hawker de Havilland Bankstown: I think I'll have an engine mount for smoko.
Foot Falcon
If you are walking somewhere (instead of driving), you are taking the foot falcon. (Townsville): I'm taking the foot falcon; I'm foot falconing it.
Contributor's comments: I've been using the term foot falcon (to walk) in Darwin for the past 20yrs or so......not sure where I got it from originally though.
Contributor's comments: I heard the term 'foot falcon' used by a mate who was of Torres Strait origin. However, most of his relations were living in Cairns and Townsville.
garage
car repair shop: the regionalism is in the pronunciation - South-west Aussies say gar arj; Melbournians say garage as in carriage.
Contributor's comments: Victorians say "gar arj"!
Editor's comments: It is very difficult to restrict any single pronunciation to a definite area. Surely there are people who pronounce "garage" both ways in Victoria. The standard British pronunciation is the one that rhymes with "carriage", but all the Victorians I know only say "guh-raj". There is a variety of Australian English known by linguists as "modified Australian" which imitates British pronunciation. It is amongst speakers of this variety that the British-like pronunciation will be present. But, where can we find these speakers? Is there a preponderance in Melbourne (as suggest above)? We need more data to clarify this.
Contributor's comments: Latrobe Valley, Victoria has a large migrant population - without fail Aussies say gar-arge, Poms say Garij.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Bathurst and my mother worked in the office of the local garage (pronounced gar-raj) - I moved to Sydney and we also called it by the same name there, some people then started calling them 'service stations' due to adds on TV when they used to promote 'SERVICE'. That is a joke these days, when there is very little 'service' as everything is 'self serve' - it is difficult to find a 'garage' where the proprietor will check your oil water and tyres.
Contributor's comments: I have lived in Vic, Qld and NSW and the only people I have ever heard rhyme it with Carriage were Poms.
Contributor's comments: My parents were English but went to boarding schools and had no 'dialect'. They both pronounced the word 'gar-raj'. So no-one can really make assumptions about pronunciation. The expression 'garage' moved to 'petrol station' before 'service station' took over, in my memory. Perhaps we should go back to that, now there is no service!
German sausage
noun a large, mild-flavoured, precooked sausage, usually sliced thinly and eaten cold. Compare beef Belgium, Belgium sausage, Byron sausage, devon, Empire sausage, fritz, luncheon sausage, polony, pork German, Strasburg, wheel meat, Windsor sausage.
Contributor's comments: [Victorian informant] Never heard this. Always referred to the sausage by its correct name i.e. Bratwurst or Mettwurst, etc.
Contributor's comments: Growing up on King Island we knew [Belgium sausage] as German Sausage.
Contributor's comments: [Melbourne informant] My dad often would suggest as a punishment that we would be given "german sausage" instead of the good home-grown meat we were used to. Sausage in any form was bad, but "german" sausage with its hint of ethnicity was the worst.
Contributor's comments: German Sausage was more coarsely textured, Beef Devon was finer and had much less colour.
Contributor's comments: Always called it devon in Melb in 1960s. It was't considered "cheap", in fact it was rather a treat to have a devon and sauce sandwich for lunch. My parents told me that it used to be called german sausage but the name was changed during one of the World Wars because of anti-German prejudice.
Contributor's comments: "German" is the term used by the locals in Launceston TAS for a pre cooked large sausage covered in a red skin. It was normally used in sandwiches or with a salad in summer.