Phraseology and Culture in English

weekend and land of the lost weekend) in an editorial of the quarterly re-
view of the Zadok Institute for Christianity and Society (Melbourne):
Welcome to the land of the lost weekend where our hard earned Saturday and 
Sunday leisure time has all but disappeared. (...) We will need the courage 
of conviction and the company of others on the journey if, for our own good 
and for the common good, we are to rediscover that land of the long weekend. 
Bittman (1998), on the other hand, uses the adjectives lost and long side by 
side, answering in the negative the question of whether Australia has be-
come “the land of the lost long weekend”. The author finds that the period 
under scrutiny (1974–1992) has seen an increase in free time. Others ap-
pear to claim the exact opposite; a case in point is that of Judy Esmond, 
who, in an address titled “From distressed to de-stressed” (second National
Respite Conference, Perth, October 2000), states the following: 
It seems that the promises of the “technological age” have not resulted in 
increased leisure time, reduced stress and a more relaxed lifestyle. In fact, 
in some ways almost the opposite has occurred as we have become “the land 
of the lost weekend”. 

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Bert Peeters
In recent years, many reporters and public figures have expressed the same 
conviction using different means, e.g. through an association of the phrase 
land of the long weekend with adjectival or adverbial phrases such as well
and truly dead (or well and truly over), once, far from, no longer etc., or 
with a noun phrase such as former incarnation (emphasis added in all of the 
following examples): 
Any notion that Australia is the land of the long weekend and people are 
clocking on and off for a 35 hour week is well and truly dead. (Kathryn 
Heiler, “All work and no play”, Lateline, ABC TV, 24 June 1999) 
Australia, once the land of the long weekend, has become a nation too en-
grossed in work, family and social activities to take holidays, tourism re-
search has found. (Australian Associated Press [AAP], “Land of work and 
no play”, The Age, 10 April 2000) 
Well, Australia may once have been dubbed “the land of the long week-
end”, but now the figures suggest the holiday is well and truly over. (Ma-
xine McKew, The 7.30 report, ABC TV, 16 July 2001) 
Far from being the land of the long weekend, Australians now work longer 
hours than people in Japan. (Wendy Caird, national secretary of the Com-
munity and Public Sector Union, quoted in Delegates @ work [National 
bulletin of the CPSU] 7, October 2001) 
No longer are we regarded as the land of the long weekend; we are now fast 
being seen as the sweatshop of the developed world. (Richard Males, assis-
tant secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, quoted in the Aus-
tralian media, Oct/Nov 2001)
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People spend too much time at work doing too little, costing workers their 
health and businesses their profits. Those are the findings of two surveys of 
productivity and overtime released today, which indicate Australia has 
swung too far away from its former incarnation as the land of the long 
weekend. (AAP, “At work for too long”, The Age, 6 August 2003) 
Others have invited their fellow Australians to reassess their current think-
ing:
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Forget the land of the long weekend. Australia has become the land of long 
working hours, grumpy partners too tired for sex, and families and commu-
nities under enormous stress. (Leonie Lamont, “ACTU launches long hours 
test case”, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 2001) 
We found out that while Australians might think they live in the land of the 
long weekend, the facts are actually quite different. (Richard Dennis, Senior 

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