Forget pints and schooners. How about a butcher, a pony or a Bishop Barker?
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
David AstleCrossword compiler, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
April 22, 2021 — 7.15pm
Normal text size
Advertisement
Stone the crows! Starve the lizards! My brain has been quarantined in dusty vernacular all day, from bushfire blonde (a redhead) to Woolloomooloo upper-cut (a knee to the groin). To skew the L.P. Hartley quote: “The past is a foreign country; they say things differently there.”
Eighty years ago, a mangle was a bicycle, jonick meant genuine, while colonial goose was actually mutton stuffed with sage. See what I mean? That last sentence reads as modern nonsense, but history doesn’t care how its language will sound a century later.