Wyn Drabble has written a piece about days gone by at a barbie. Photo / NZME
Wyn Drabble has written a piece about days gone by at a barbie. Photo / NZME
Over the holiday period, I found myself browsing Max Cryer’s 2006 book The Godzone Dictionary. Yes, I chuckled at a lot of it, but I also felt it showed how quickly our vernacular changes.
Either I’m mixing with the wrong crowd, or many of those words and phrases are notused much today.
To illustrate, I’ve written a little piece which borrows heavily from the 2006 book. To me, it certainly sounds dated (and even Australian). I’ve enclosed my piece in inverted commas so you can be sure to know when it has ended.
“For Chrissie we went to the rellies’ for a barbie. Everyone had to take a plate, so we took some sammies, sossies, chocky bikkies and paper lollies, as well as some plonk in a chilly bin. It was a bit of a bun fight getting all the kai laid out – the trestles were fair groaning – but, by hokey, it ended up being a real doozy. It sure beat a feed of greasies.
Crikey dick, some of those cuzzies can eat. They can wrap their laughing gear ‘round smoked kahawai, mutton flap, roast hogget, roast chook and then look around for a main course.
You had to rattle your dags if you wanted to taste all the yummy puddings when they came out. What a spread! Lamingtons, trifle, jelly, fly cemeteries and a pav topped with tinned fruit. Even a lolly scramble for rellies with sprogs in tow.
There were heaps of us there so the dunny took a bit of a battering, but the porcelain and the plumbing were up to the job.
Some of the bros were flakers pretty early on in the piece, but we didn’t hang ‘round because we had to shoot through to get to another do.”
It all took me back to an even earlier period, when songs captured the national character. Three which instantly sprang to mind were Down the Hall on Saturday Night (Peter Cape), Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line (also Peter Cape?) and The Dog Dosing Strip at Dunsandel (Ken Avery).
So embedded are they in my brain that I can still remember the lyrics without using the help of Google.
“I’ve got a new brown sports coat,
I’ve got a new pair of grey strides,
I’ve got a real Kiwi haircut,
Bit off the top and short back ‘n’ sides.”
While the popularity of brown sports coats – especially with grey strides – has taken a bit of a nosedive, the haircut has clearly come full circle.
Other key phrases were “the sheilas are cutting the supper” (presumably sammies) and “a great big bunch of jokers, hanging ‘round the door”. It was clearly an age of inequality; even the request to contribute to supper was “ladies, please bring a plate”, though invitations never seemed to bear the words, “blokes, please hang ‘round the door”.
The railway station in Taumarunui may not seem like a romantic setting, and the song supports that view. “So you pop off to refreshments for a cuppa tea and pie” leads to a little story of unrequited love with “this sheila” who was “pourin’ cupsa tea”.
The Dunsandel song is a love song too, but it is set alongside the very romantic background of tapeworm and hydatids control. Within it is embedded a parallel canine love story (“the dogs gave a lead”), so it’s pretty sophisticated songwriting.
I have driven through Dunsandel countless times, and I’ll wager that every single time I have burst into song: “By the dog-dosing strip at Dunsandel, I fell in love with you.”
“Sheila” and “cuppa” both earned a mention in The Godzone Dictionary, but “dog-dosing” failed to make the cut. Perhaps the book was chokka.
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
