Similes
Some Australian expressions, in the form of similes, compare humans with animals
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Cartoon: David Pope
Fit as a mallee bull
Extremely strong and healthy.
A mallee bull is one that lives in mallee country — poor, dry country where small scrubby eucalypts called 'mallee' grow. Any creature that survives in such difficult conditions would have to be tough and fit.
'Forty pushups every morning Kev — you'll be fit as a mallee bull.' The word 'mallee' probably comes from an Aboriginal language of western Victoria.
Hear the phrase fit as a Mallee bull in use (MP3 51kb)
Cartoon: David Pope
Flash as a rat with a gold tooth
Ostentatious, showy and a bit too flashily dressed.
This phrase is used only of a man and implies that, although he may be well-dressed and well-groomed, there is also something a bit dodgy about him. In spite of a superficial smartness, he is not to be trusted. In spite of the gold tooth, he is still a rat.
Hear the phrase flash as a rat with a gold tooth in use (MP3 42kb)
Cartoon: David Pope
Like a drover's dog
'Drover's dog' has been used since the 1940s in various similes, usually uncomplimentary — 'a head like a drover's dog' (big and ugly), 'all prick and ribs like a drover's dog' (lean and hungry), and 'leaking like a drover's dog' (as in 'the NSW Cabinet is leaking like a drover's dog!').
It can also mean a nonentity, as when a politician commented in 1983 that 'a drover's dog could lead the Labor Party to victory.'
Hear the phrase like a drover's dog in use (MP3 50kb)
Cartoon: David Pope
Mad as a cut snake
Crazy or angry.
The two senses of the phrase derive from the fact that 'mad' has two main senses — 'crazy' and 'angry'. The 'crazy' sense is illustrated by 'that bloke wearing a teapot on his head is as mad as a cut snake', and the angry sense is illustrated by 'be careful of the boss this afternoon, he's as mad as a cut snake'.
Hear the phrase mad as a cut snake in use (MP3 39kb)
Cartoon: David Pope
Miserable as a bandicoot
Extremely unhappy.
Bandicoots are small marsupials with long faces, and have been given a role in Australian English in similes that suggest unhappiness or some kind of deprivation.
The expression 'miserable as a bandicoot' was first recorded in 1845. A person can also be as 'bald as a bandicoot', as 'blind as a bandicoot', or be isolated 'like a bandicoot on a burnt ridge'.