People collect weird things: toilet paper from around the world, rodent traps, oven doors. Now the Australian National Dictionary Centre wants you to contribute to its collection of colloquial names for flora and fauna.
Think bin chickens, maggies, chooks and mozzies. Others, such as Noah’s Arks (sharks) and brain-fever birds (pallid cuckoos) might leave most amateur Aussie wordsmiths scratching their heads.
“They could be names you don’t often hear other people use, or names you knew as a child,” says senior researcher Mark Gwynn.
“They could also be specific to a particular place, for instance the willy wagtail is often called the djitty djitty in Western Australia.”
Some are relatively simple, such as gladdy for gladioli and wedgie for wedge-tailed eagles. Others are more colourful, for example flying cane toad for the Indian myna bird and bushman’s clock for the kookaburra.
“Australians are well known for their use of colloquialisms and slang, and this certainly extends into the natural environment,” Mr Gwynn said.
“We would love to add more of these colloquialisms to our record of Australian English. People might be surprised that some of these types of informal naming are quite widespread and in some cases, quite old. As a kid I certainly knew a few names for different cicadas including the greengrocer and black prince which turn out to have a long history in Australian English.”
You can share your fauna and flora words via the ANDC Word Box feature or through the ANDC contact page.
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