The word billabong comes to us from the Wiradjuri language spoken in the area near the Murrumbidgee and Lachlan Rivers. The first element billa means ‘water’ but no one is quite sure what the second element is. One theory is that bang/bong means ‘dead’.
Read MoreIn everyone else’s English a battler is simply someone who does battle. A warrior or a fighter. But in colonial Australia the prototype of the battler was someone who, having few resources and many difficulties in life, nevertheless worked hard and struggled on to make a living. Typically this was in the bush where they had managed to secure a small selection on land that was probably not especially good, the best land having been taken by the squatters.
Read MoreThe bilby gets its name from the Yuwaalaray language of northern New South Wales. It used to be plentiful in most parts of Australia west of the Great Dividing Range, and had adapted to a wide range of environments from grasslands to desert, covering %70 of Australia.
Read MoreMy interest is in the very Australian way in which artist is used ironically to denote someone who behaves in a certain specified way, as in a booze artist, a con artist, a bullshit artist. But to talk about that we need to go back into the history of the word in British English.
Read MoreI love collecting stones although it is a habit I have to curb if I am not to fill up the house and garden with things that have caught my eye. I still have the two large pebbles from a Danish beach on my bedside table because I love their look and texture, and they remind me of the beach which was so different from our Australian beaches.
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