Helen FieldsScience Writer

The Dictionary of the Week is a new acquisition. Yesterday I was killing time (and seeking heat) in Harvard Square, so I ducked into a used bookstore. Then I realized that they specialize in scholarly used books, so I was ready to duck right back out into the 20-degree-F outdoors when I stumbled across the dictionary section. Of course I couldn’t resist The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary for $7.95.

It’s not for translating between Australian and English; it’s a dictionary of English, as it is used in Australia. You know, like a Webster’s dictionary of American English, but with more marsupials.

First: pronunciation. The pronunciation guide in the front defines the sound “ah” thus: “as in calm, path, arm.” Er…those are three totally different sounds. In college, I studied abroad in Australia and New Zealand with a friend named Becca who has been known as “Beaker” (to a lucky few) ever since – because that’s just how everyone pronounced her name.

Australian English also has lots of words I don’t use in my daily life. Take the phrase “mad as a gum tree full of galahs.” A galah (guh-lah) is a kind of Australian cockatoo – the word comes, says the dictionary, from the word “gilaa” in the Yuwaalaraay language. Australian English has no shortage of words for different cockatoos and wallabies and shrubs, but the differences go beyond that: the preposition “longa,” in Aboriginal English, means “belonging to; near; about; with.” And a “furphy” is a “false report or rumour,” which comes from a kind of cart that was a center of gossip during the second world war.

I love the diversity of English. Down there on the other side of the world, people are going about their lives speaking something that doesn’t just have a different accent from what I speak; it’s got a vocabulary all its own. And over there in England, “pants” has a different meaning. And yet we’re all speaking something descended from the language of this guy.

This dictionary does, however, lead me to wonder if “pocket” means something different in other English dialects. The book is the weight of one of the larger Harry Potters, and while it does fit in one of the bigger pockets on my raincoat, it pulls that whole side down, and I think I would prefer to wing it, dictionary-free, on the mean streets of Melbourne. In the same used bookstore I saw a Kodansha “pocket” Japanese dictionary – also published by Oxford – that was almost as big as a toaster.

Dictionary Stats: The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 5th ed.

date: 2002
publisher: Oxford University Press
editor: Bruce Moore
length: 1298 pages (I said it was big)
guide words on p. 1010: shake-a-leg n. Aust. style of traditional Aboriginal dancing; shamefaced adj. 1. showing shame. 2. bashful, shy.
useful extras: A map on the back endpaper shows where more than 90 Australian Aboriginal languages are spoken, from Adnyamathanha (central South Australia) to Yuwaaliyaay (northern New South Wales).
obscenities: Nope. Hm. That seems a little unrealistic. This is Australia we’re talking about. Also, “tranny” is defined as “transistor radio.”