National Museum of Australia - Australian History

Australian History

Many Australian words and idioms derive from events, people, and places that have been significant in Australia's history.

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Cartoon of an elderly kangaroo couple having arrived at a party, the wife with a plate of lamingtons, the husband with a keg of beer.

Cartoon: David Pope

Bring a plate

An invitation to bring a plate of food to share at a social gathering or fundraiser.

There are many stories of new arrivals in Australia being bamboozled by the instruction to bring a plate. As the locals know, an empty plate will not do.

In earlier days the request was often 'ladies a plate', sometimes followed by 'gentlemen a donation'.

audio Hear the phrase bring a plate in use (MP3 46kb)

Cartoon of a Logger playing cards on a tree stump with a possum.

Cartoon: David Pope

Buckley's chance

No chance at all.

Often abbreviated to Buckley's — 'you've got Buckley's, mate!' Some claim it comes from the name of the convict William Buckley, who escaped from Port Phillip in 1803 and lived for 32 years with Aborigines in southern Victoria.

Others suggest a punning reference to the Melbourne department store Buckley & Nunn — 'you have two chances, Buckley's and none'.

audio Hear the phrase Buckley's chance in use (MP3 31kb)

Cartoon of two wombats in the trenches on the battlefield.

Cartoon: David Pope

Digger

An Australian soldier.

The earliest Australian sense of digger was 'a miner digging for gold'.

But during World War I, digger came to mean an Australian or New Zealand soldier, because much of the troops' time was spent digging trenches. This usage, first recorded 1916, continued through World War II and the Vietnam War.

audio Hear the word digger in use (MP3 42kb)

Cartoon of two WW1 soldiers on the battlefield, one tells the other that he has it on good authority that it is the war to end all wars.

Cartoon: David Pope

Furphy

An untrue rumour, an absurd story.

The firm J Furphy & Sons, of Shepparton in Victoria, made water carts on which the name Furphy appeared in large letters. In Egypt during the First World War, the drivers of these carts often carried rumours and gossip into the camps. Any false rumour therefore came to be called a furphy.

audio Hear the word furphy in use (MP3 72kb)

Cartoon of two wombats in hard hats and a possum forming a community picket under a gum tree marked to be cut down.

Cartoon: David Pope

Green ban

A trade union ban on demolition or construction projects on sites deemed to be of historical, cultural or environmental significance.

The term arose by analogy with black ban, with the colour green being associated with the environmental lobby in West Germany in the early 1970s.

The term green ban was first recorded in 1973 in Australia and was used elsewhere later.

audio Hear the word Green ban in use (MP3 71kb)

Cartoon of a mother & child staring through a hole that a tram left in a Bondi Beach sign when it left the tracks and 'shot through.'

Cartoon: David Pope

Shoot through like a Bondi tram

Make a hasty departure.

Bondi is the Sydney suburb renowned worldwide for its surf beach.

The phrase (first recorded in 1945) probably derives from the fact that two trams typically left the city for Bondi together, the first an express tram which would 'shoot through' from Darlinghurst to Bondi Junction. Trams last ran on the line in 1960, but the phrase has remained a part of Australian English.

audio Hear the phrase shoot through like a Bondi tram in use (MP3 40kb)