Every year, the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) asks Australians for their input. This year, they’re asking Australians to help them out with food terms and food-related phrases. However, the appeal to all Australians first began with “nicknames for Australian placenames” in 2019. And some of the results are absolute beauties.
We’ve taken a look through the long, long list and selected some of our favourites. Bear in mind that some towns and places have more than one nickname and we’ve just selected the ones we think are the funniest, strangest, most ironic, or flat-out, say what? Or, some that just made us laugh.
- Aberfoyle Park is Staberfoyle Park
- Booborowie is Boob
- Mount Gambier is G-Banger
- Murray Bridge is Muzz Biz, Muzza Bizza and Muzza Ghetti
- Oodnadatta is Oodnabloodydatta
- Port Lincoln is Tuna Town
- Victor Harbour is God’s Waiting Room
And what about Adelaide?
A-town, Adders, Radcity, Radders, Radelaide, Rads, T’adelaide, Bendigo with trams, Lithgow by the Sea and Murderlaide. Oh, and city of churches but we already knew that one.
If you’re interested, you can check out the entire, Australia-wide list here.
According to the ANDC, “the informal names we use for our regions, cities, towns, and suburbs” (along with all subsequent appeals) go towards supplementing the database and would help identify possible new entries for the Australian National Dictionary (AND). It would also enrich Australian English and reveal “similarities between the patterns of nicknaming and other forms of word generation in Australian English.” You can check out their initial observations here.
And, you can contribute to the food terms and food-related phrases appeal here.