h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Over here we use that term in reference to a group of ppl who don't know the meaning of the word 'promise'. The have managed to make several variations of this word in cluding 'core promise' and 'electoral promise' all of which mean 'just something we say to get your vote'

Variations on a theme:

"You've never had it so good" = "I think you are far too stupid to remember what it was like a year ago."

"I've always believed in...." = "it is currently helpful to my purpose to take a sudden interest in....."

"I'm on record as saying...." = "I said something completely different in an entirely separate context, but no-one ever checks...."

"Sick!" has been used a lot in the past few years. It's definately an Australian young people's thing, it means "good". "Sickness" and "crapness" are also used, they don't mean "goodness" and "badness" though, they mean "very good" and "very bad".
"Grouse" also means "good" as one can tell by reading the famous love poem "You're Grouse"-
You're grouse
Be my spouse.

Clean my house
Ignore the mouse

Gone bung means to break down or stop working.
Meat wouldn't generally be refer to as gone bung but
rather as gone off, which refers to the smell mainly.

I have always refered to a pie and sauce as Dogs Eye and Horse
rather than your version of Pie and Dead Horse.

I think that if you consult a good history book that
you will find that for a very brief period New Zealand
came under the control of the Governer of New South Wales (NSW).
I remember seeing a number of maps in a history book many years ago
that showed the expansion and contraction of the boarders of NSW
during the early years of settlement and one of them clearly
included New Zealand as part of NSW.

The actual city square mile was very well laid out, including the parklands and Nth. Adelaide, but anything beyond there is a hopeless mess - urban sprawl from north to south, stuck between the hills and the sea, with no bypasses or a decent freeway system.

Wowbagger the expatriate Adelaidian

And there's also "Hip-hop down the frog-toad to the tin-tank" Which is "Pop down the road to the bank"

According to the wonderful Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: Pom·my
Variant(s): or Pom·mie /'pä-mE/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural Pommies
Etymology: by shortening & alter. from pomegranate, alteration of Jimmy Grant, rhyming slang for immigrant
Date: 1912
Australian & New Zealand, usually disparaging : BRITON; especially : an English immigrant

So that says that one origin of pommy comes from pomegranate, as rhymes with immigrant. I'm not sure how true that is, but it came from the dictionary.

I think you'll find that it is the Frog 'n' Toad

sandi

"At the moment the brain drain from NZ to Australia has the effect of raising the IQ levels of both countries"

So, you're sending most of your sheep over are you?!?

ICU2

I heard a similar one -- Prisoner of His/Her Majesty. Don't know how valid it is though.

There are three piquant terms that I've come across whilst living in a university population in Brisbane, Queensland:

to be "Off his/her Tits" : to be very drunk
to be "maggot" : also, alas, to be very drunk
"Goon" : noun referring to cheap wine that
comes in a cardboard carton. Possibly
only known to University of Queensland
students.

What many foreigners don't understand is the Australian use of the "C" word by men. In Australia men call each other "C" as a term of affection as well as in anger. Women are never called "C". I am told by am American friend that this is the reverse in the US. Another Aussie colloqualism is the phrase "drop your guts" for fart, as in "who dropped their guts?"