Posts Tagged: First Nations People Australia

  • The bunyip may have been derived from a diprotodon

    Bunyips, yowies and the Mulyawonk

    Back on the 1st April 1977, I took a school mate to the Australian Museum in Sydney. We saw a bunyip skull in one of the display cases, which I thought was hilarious. However, my mate was convinced it was real—its April Fools Day, I said but he could not believe that a serious institution […]

  • Words ending in oo

    Worldly words ending in -oo

    I was thinking about hullabaloo as my word of the week. When I tried to guess its origin I found that I was completely wrong—it is a native to England and Scotland. I had thought that all English words ending in -oo must come from a similar place, but the opposite is the case. I […]

  • Aussie animal road signs in the outback.

    Why Aussie animals have unusual names

    It is Australia Day on the 26 January. When the Europeans arrived they replaced the native languages with a mix of formal English and a collection of odd dialect words from working class London and rural Britain. However, many new words were adopted for the unusual and unique animals that the Europeans had never seen before and for which they had no words. They come from some rather unexpected places.

  • Saying sorry to First Nations people has to be have some results

    Is sorry the right word?

    When Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologises to the Aboriginal Australia for the stolen generation (seen notes), will sorry be the right word? Saying sorry has failed to heal community divisions because the word is a general practitioner being asked to be a specialist. The 1997 Bringing them Home Report started the movement in earnest. No […]