Etymythology and the Australian lexicon: What Lexical 'Furphies' Tell Us About Australian English and Society

Etymythologies are 'the lexical version of an urban legend... not transmitted by scholarly research but passed on by word of mouth (or computer)' (Horn, 2004, p. 39). These legends are often more interesting than their factual counterparts (e.g. one etymythology for shit, a nautical order to 'store higher in transit', is more interesting than its actual Old English origins - a word meaning 'diarrhoea').

Yet, etymythologies are more than mere false stories. They serve an important social function as privileged information among an in-group. Etymythologies tend to proliferate around opaque language like rhyming slang (e.g. Lillo, 2018), in social identity-making (e.g. Zuckermann, 2020) and around taboo (e.g. Horn, 2018).

The Australian lexicon has its share of etymythologies, especially around those words many Aussies celebrate as 'Australian slang'. However, little scholarly attention has been given to the role of these etymythologies in Australian society.

In this talk, we examine the circulation of etymythologies for Australian words, such as barrack, billy, chunder, dinkum, in media across time, including The Bulletin and The Conversation. We also explore commentary on etymythologies in a survey of more than 2,000 Australians, collected as part of a larger project on the Australian lexicon.

Preliminary findings suggest Australian etymythologies may be a meeting place of history and boundary-keeping. For instance, etymythologies may proliferate around words that are viewed as particularly 'Australian' but in fact have clear British origins. Etymythologies cloak these British words in a distinctive Australian identity, as when dinkum (a British regionalism) engenders multiple etymythologies linking it to the Australian goldfields.

Mark Twain once wrote: 'Australian history... does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies'.

Australians' celebrated lexicon certainly contributes to this mystique. In this talk, we hope to start a conversation around the importance of etymythologies to the vibrancy and longevity of the Australian lexicon.

Date

Friday 21 March 2025

Time

1 to 2 pm

Location

Online via Zoom

Speakers

Howard Manns, Kate Burridge and Simon Musgrave
Monash University

Suggested pre-reading

Horn, L.R. (2004). Spitten image: Etymythology and Fluid Dynamics. American Speech 79(1), 33-58.

Horn, L. R. (2018). Nice words for nasty things. In D. Sosa (Ed.), Bad words: Philosophical perspectives on slurs (pp. 193-230). Oxford University Press.

Lillo, A. (2018). Etymological myths and compound etymologies in rhyming slang. English Studies, 99(6), 688–703. hOps://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2018.1492233

Zuckermann, G. (2020). Revivalistics: From the genesis of Israeli to language reclamation in Australia and beyond. Oxford University Press.