Aussie Life
Language
‘Hypocorism’ is another strange and wonderful word (hip-OCK-ah-riz-um.) The Oxford’s definition is: ‘pet name’. But there is a bit more…
Aussie life
St Arnaud is a tiny speck on the map of Australia. The western Victorian town is surrounded by farmland and…
Aussie life
‘You’ve come a long way, baby,’ said the slogan which positioned Virginia Slims as the cigarette for the emancipated American…
Language
It was one hundred years ago this year that the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova toured Australia and New Zealand…
Aussie life
The middle-class leftist activism that you now encounter every day in Australia and the West has a major flaw. It…
Language
There is a bit of water in the Persian Gulf that is in the news almost every day now –…
Aussie life
History doesn’t repeat itself, said Mark Twain, but it often rhymes. And a century and a half after he said…
Language
There I was, relaxing one evening, when my phone burbled with a text. It was our distinguished editor with a…
Aussie life
As any arborist with a swimming pool will tell you, money really does grow on trees. And if I had…
Language
When I discover a new word I am delighted. ‘Autochthonous’ is one I have seen occasionally, but which I have…
Aussie life
I’ve probably enjoyed as many long lunches as any old adman, and in the 1980s and ’90s may well have…
Language
Are our governments guilty of ‘menticide’? This uncommon word is recorded from 1951, in which year it first appeared in…
Aussie life
In a recent speech, artist Tim Storrier made a powerful attack on the current state of arts administrators in Australia,…
language
Albanese has spent the whole of his political life a member of Labor’s socialist left. As a result we get…
Aussie life
Now that Mr Albanese seems finally to have woken up to the problem of Australian antisemitism, nobody should be surprised…
Language
Speccie reader Reona writes to ask where the expression ‘peppercorn rent’ comes from. Well, there once was a time when…
Aussie life
In an exciting breakthrough in academic hygiene, the University of Adelaide is to install ‘squat toilets’ in new buildings. This…
Language
I have finally snapped! I have become so annoyed by lying halfwits misusing the word ‘genocide’ that I am going…
Aussie life
In Queensland, Victoria or New South Wales the cancellation of a writers’ festival would be an inconvenience. ‘Bummer,’ some people…
Language
Sometimes words are invented just because people wish there were such words – and (I suppose) wish that what they…
Aussie life
According to a Tokyo University study of dogs, we can disregard the usual male-female stereotypes, as their research shows boy…
Language
Recently on Mammamia.com Emily Vernem and Holly Wainwright complained about the rise of what they call ‘dawn culture’. They complain…
Aussie life
Did the Prime Minister drag his heels on new firearms legislation because he feared it might impact his cabinet? Until…
Language
As Australia continues to suffer from the evil of antisemitism a phrase (or three phrases if you count the different…
Language
In a column in the Daily Telegraph Andrew Bolt used the word ‘pretendian’. I conducted a careful search, and so…
