Phraseology and Culture in English

4. Recurrent social themes in Australian idiom 
Among the idioms reviewed so far, themes such as loneliness or rather 
aloneness have come up in examples from both the nineteenth and twenti-
eth century. From the early similes referring to the bandicoot and the shag 
on a rock, to the country dunny and the cocky on the biscuit tin, they pre-
sent increasingly complex issues. While the first two connect with the vast-
ness of the landscape and are relatively value-free, the third and fourth arise 
out of human impact on the land, and project some of the issues in being 
alone. Is it self-imposed isolation? Does it connote powerlessness and lack 
of influence over others? Is there some unnecessary or unfortunate incon-
gruity with the context? This last theme is more obviously there in similes 
such as like a moll at a christening, also a streetgirl / gin at a christening
(Wilkes 1995). Baker (1978: 426) had it as like a chromo at a christening,
where the key word abbreviates the dated slang “chromolithograph” for 
‘prostitute’). These are Australian calques of the British simile like an old
whore at a christening recorded by Grose (1811), but typically used of men 
who are out of place in a given context, and on the back foot socially. The 
same theme is projected more light-heartedly in happy / lucky as a bastard
on Father’s Day, also phrased without irony as unhappy (or miserable) as a
bastard on Father’s Day (Wilkes 1995) – the discomfort of being there 
when everyone but you has something to celebrate. 
Finding humor in the face of life’s sheer bad luck is valued by the Aus-
tralian “battler”,
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and stoicism is the driving force for a remarkable set of 
idioms prefaced by the phrase if it was raining. They seem to be modeled 
on a British figure of speech: if it should rain porridge, he would want (i.e.
lack) his dish, which dates from 1670 according to the OED. Comic vari-
ants of this are reported in Wilkes (1995) from 1944 on, including: 
If it rained soup, I’d be left with a fork
If it was raining pea soup, he’d only have a fork
If it was rainin’ palaces, I’d get hit on the head with the handle of
the dunny door
If it was rainin’ virgins, we’d be washed away with a poofta
The fixed elements of this lexically open idiom reside in (a) the remote 
conditional clause if it rained/was raining (there being no distinction in 
most Australian English between the hypothetical and impossible condition 
(Peters 1997)); and (b) the modality (would) of the main clause. The verbs 

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Pam Peters 
usually show colloquial contraction, with the use of ‘d for “would” and the 
substitution of /n/ for /ng/ on the participle of the conditional clause. Slang 
terms, such as dunny and poofta (‘homosexual’), are at home in the idiom. 
Earthy humor combines with a farcical conceit in each variant of the idio-
matic pattern, to express resilience in the face of adversity. 
Problems of the human condition are addressed more directly in idioms 
that refer to poverty and the issue of unemployment. But the problems are 
contained, verbally at least, in a series of rhyming idioms that turn on pla-
cenames: e.g. things are (is) crook (i.e. ‘bad’) at Musselbrook (or Talla-
rook), and things are (is) weak at Werris Creek (or Julia Creek), reported 
by Baker (1978) and Wilkes (1995). Alternatively there may be no work at
Bourke; no feedin’ at Eden, and nothing doin’ at Araluen.
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All these find a 
rhyme for the name of an Australian country town, and suggest the resolute 
trudge from one place to another in the search for a job. It goes with sleep-
ing in the Star Hotel (‘under the stars’) and sleeping with Mrs Green, in 
New Zealand idiom (Lawson, The Romance of the Swag, 1907). A man is 
then reduced (in Australian idiom) to a bullocky’s breakfast or bushman’s