Aussie Life
Kiwi life
Ah, summer. The sap is rising, and so are anxiety levels on either side of the Tasman as editors cast…
Language
They keep inventing new, so-called ‘phobias’, don’t they? The latest is ‘fatphobia’. A new book has been published called Unshrinking:…
Language
Raymond, a Speccie reader, has coined a new (and possibly very useful) word: ‘twistory’. This neologism is another portmanteau word,…
Aussie life
Australia is becoming a secular society. Religion of the boring old traditional type our grandparents followed is on the way…
Language
A Speccie reader in Canberra (what has he done to deserve capital punishment?) asks the origin of the latest label…
Language
They keep doing this to us. Those kids keep inventing new words of obscure origin, and of even obscurer meaning.…
Aussie life
‘Oh sweetheart,’ I smiled lovingly at my four-week-old, Teddy, one night at 3am, while changing his nappy, ‘would you please…
Aussie life
While the donning of keffiyehs by actors at the end of a performance of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of…
Language
When Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press he was asked if Israel was breaking international…
Aussie life
Who can honestly say they’ve never contemplated murder? What red-blooded Australian can put their hand on their heart and swear…
Language
We are unlikely to forget the look on Anthony Blinken’s face when the word ‘dictator’ slipped out of Joe Biden’s…
Language
My Australian Word of the Year for 2023 is ‘No’. I made the announcement this week on Peta Credlin’s show…
Aussie life
I’ve never been a fan of Gordon Ramsay. More prudie than foodie, perhaps, I’ve always believed that what comes out…
Language
At first glance ‘deafening silence’ looks like an oxymoron – a noun linked to a contradictory adjective. We know all…
Language
I suggest the right word for Hamas is ‘barbarians’. It was the Greeks who coined this word when savage, uncivilised…
Aussie life
Now that the referendum is behind us, we must start doing something about Australia’s burgeoning ICE problem. You wouldn’t know…
Language
They say that in war truth is the first casualty – and the language of truth is certainly being butchered…
Language
The weather bureau tells us that we are now officially in an ‘El Niño event’ and, as a result we…
Aussie life
Timing matters just as much in tragedy as it does in comedy. And it is important to remember that the…
Language
The word ‘special’ means: ‘Exceptional in quality or degree; unusual; out of the ordinary; excelling in some way’ (Oxford English…
Aussie life
The plight of indigenous people is a scab on our nation which worsens with the picking. No one, not even…
Language
Noel Pearson and others have insisted the Voice referendum ‘is not about race’. Does that make sense linguistically? The word…
Aussie life
The death of actor David McCallum last week prompted me to google the theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,…
Language
A reader has asked me about the common expression ‘virtue-signalling’. The meaning, I think, is fairly clear. It is a…
Aussie life
The word humble comes from the Latin humilis, or humus, meaning literally, soil or ground, a priest recently revealed in…
