Austral English

The first word is “Absentee”: a genteel label for a runaway convict, Morris notes, that vanished when there was no longer a need for it. What else does a dictionary reveal when it listens to the words people actually use?

In the late nineteenth century, Edward Ellis Morris set out to gather the English of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand—words shaped by unfamiliar landscapes, local life, and Aboriginal Australian and Māori languages. Prompted by Dr. James Murray to contribute regional vocabulary to the Oxford English Dictionary, Morris found that standard dictionaries often missed more than newly coined terms: familiar English words could take on distinctly Australasian meanings. Here, an “anabranch” winds back into its river, an “opossum-mouse” takes to the air, and “wattle” names a world of acacias. Which everyday words carry a history their users may never suspect?

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