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.
- Albany is Albania, Bogan Town, Dizzytown
- Bunbury is Bogan City, Bumhole, Feral Town and Methcapital
- Busselton is Boozelton
- Carnarvon is Goonge Town
- Coral Bay is Immoral Bay
- Cottesloe is CotteslOMG
- Cowaramup is Cow-Up-a-Ram
- Donnybrook is Asscreek
- Geraldton is Dero Gero and Riviera of the West
- Gnowangerup is Goanna Nuts and Gnangers
- Halls Creek is Hells Crack
- Kookynie is Loongoothda (someone got an explanation?)
- Margaret River is Yuppie Town
- Midland is Madland
- Norseman is One Horse Town
- Northhampton is Moonie and Moonie Mia
- Ongerup is Sin City
- Porongurrups is Onga Pumps
- Rockingham is New Johannesburg, Rocking Hole and Swinging Pig
- Wubbin is Where
And what about Perth?
Dullsville, P-City, P-Town, Perf, Purf, the Swamp and, our favourite, The Great Retirement Home in the West.
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.