Aussie Life

Aussie life

8 October 2022 9:00 am

Recent reports of a WA man being killed by a kangaroo have been syndicated by foreign news agencies for much…

Language

8 October 2022 9:00 am

The word ‘they’ has two legitimate uses and one illegitimate use. The first proper and legitimate use is as the…

Aussie life

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Prior to the threatened rewriting of the Australian constitution can we stop re-writing the English dictionary and the meanings of…

Language

1 October 2022 9:00 am

According to American journalist Kaylee McGhee White (writing in the Washington Examiner) it is now officially okay to use the…

Aussie life

24 September 2022 9:00 am

As I sit in my study at the end of the day listening to the heavy rain and wondering when…

Language

24 September 2022 9:00 am

European and Indian languages seem to be related in the very distant past. Linguists are able, for example, to trace…

Aussie life

17 September 2022 9:00 am

‘I’d rather see a church burn,’ is my usual response to a glass of wine getting knocked over. So if…

Language

17 September 2022 9:00 am

The word ‘map’ no longer means just a bit of cartography – it now also means ‘minor attracted person’. In…

Aussie life

10 September 2022 9:00 am

What is it about Daniel Andrews, quasi-dictator of Victoria? He runs what Tony Abbott last week called ‘the worst government…

Language

10 September 2022 9:00 am

The word ‘sovereignty’ is recorded as part of the English language since at least 1340 – a very old word…

Aussie life

2 September 2022 11:00 pm

Anthony Albanese’s republican sympathies were a matter of public record when a Voice to Parliament wasn’t even a whisper in…

Woke language

2 September 2022 11:00 pm

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) once said: ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.’ And if the woke…

Aussie life

26 August 2022 11:00 pm

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is one of those documents, like the ‘Bringing them Home’ report that everybody has…

Language

26 August 2022 11:00 pm

When radicals want to upend society they often cloak their intentions under kind-sounding words. So, if the plan is to…

Aussie life

20 August 2022 9:00 am

‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man? complains Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, a musical whose title…

Language

20 August 2022 9:00 am

British journalist Richard Godwin has alerted me to what may be the trendiest word of the moment: ‘namecore’. This is…

Aussie Life

13 August 2022 9:00 am

‘Give it up for the band!’ cried Van Morrison from the stage at King John’s castle in Limerick the other…

Language

13 August 2022 9:00 am

As the contest to replace Boris Johnson draws towards its protracted close, we should remember that many of the original…

Epigram

13 August 2022 9:00 am

Our Marriage Soundtrack I think of our marriage quite often. I think of the music as well. It started with…

Aussie Life

6 August 2022 9:00 am

I read in the Australian last week that the Queensland parliament is considering criminalising stealthing. And no, that’s not a…

Language

6 August 2022 9:00 am

A Speccie reader has alerted me to the use of an odd word ‘alum’ to refer to the graduates of…

Aussie life

30 July 2022 9:00 am

New US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy had them at her first media conference interjection: when the white, stale male journalist (the…

Language

30 July 2022 9:00 am

It was Will Self (writing in The Speccie) who drew my attention to the new word ‘uberise.’ He says he…

Aussie life

23 July 2022 9:00 am

Sport has always played a big part in Australian life, but in the interests of diversity it would be wrong…

Language

23 July 2022 9:00 am

No sooner had the words ‘blue murder’ appeared on the cover of this august journal than a Speccie reader was…