Phraseology and Culture in English

rald, 4 May 2004) 

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82
Bert Peeters
These are no doubt instances of the plainly “jocular” use of the phrase, the 
only one referred to in the second edition of the Macquarie Book of Slang 
(Lambert 2000). 
Strikingly, over the last ten years, it is the literal meaning of the collo-
cation which appears to have been rediscovered. In the majority of con-
temporary occurrences, the use of an extremely serious tone undercuts the 
jocular aspect. The very existence of such a tone clearly signals that the 
phrase is mainly used in a transparent fashion (contrary to the name given 
to New Zealand), either to translate disapproval of the way things are, or 
to express nostalgia of the way they were. Disapproval is a clear compo-
nent in a press release issued in October 1993 by the media office of 
Roger Pescott, a minister in the Victorian state government. It referred to a 
bill subsequently approved as the Public Holidays Act. The aim of this 
legal document was, on the one hand, to ensure that, in Victoria, Austra-
lia’s National Day would be celebrated on the day itself (i.e. 26 January) 
rather than on the following Monday, and on the other hand to reduce the 
number of holidays and non-working days in the state.
5
The press release 
contained the following assertions, which demonstrate that, in the minis-
ter’s opinion, the time had come to combat the lack of zeal in many Victo-
rians:
Mr Pescott said the change was designed to reflect the standards adopted in 
most Western nations and assist in moving toward uniformity [sic] with 
public holidays throughout Australia. 
“It will also be of significant benefit to business and marks a shift away from 
Australia’s image as the land of the long weekend,” he said. 
In similar fashion, on 24 September 1997, Millicent E. Poole, the new Vice-
Chancellor of Edith Cowan University (Western Australia), made the fol-
lowing solemn statement in an inaugural address called “Framing our fu-
ture: change and differentiation”: 
I accept that universities have a major role in supporting economic devel-
opment and wealth creation. I positively embrace any attempt to shift Aus-
tralian cultural values from the ‘land of the long weekend’ mentality in which 
sporting achievements are lauded while scientific achievements are ignored 
and entrepreneurial and creative achievements viewed with suspicion. I 
commend the shift from the ‘Lucky Country’ to the ‘Competitive, Clever 
Country’ but I will continue to fight for the recognition of the intrinsic value 
of higher education.
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Australian perceptions of the weekend
83
It won’t come as a surprise that vice-chancellors fail to get a lot of comfort 
out of the phrase land of the long weekend. Hardly anything else can be 
expected from them. 
2.2. “Land of the lost weekend” 
Another, much more recent, phrase surfaces in the mid-1990s. Rather than 
disapproval, the prevailing sentiment of those who use it is that things have 
changed. The new phrase plays on the phonetic resemblance of the words 
long and lost, and first appears, by the looks of it, in a critical assessment of 
a documentary ironically titled Land of the Long Weekend, produced by 
Film Australia and broadcast on ABC TV on 6 September 1995: 
Land of the Long Weekend attempts to explain why Australian workers were 
the first in the world to win the eight-hour day and to examine the legacy of 
that struggle today. In the process, this documentary uncovers an Australia 
no longer drunk on sunshine or living weekends to the full, but which has 
become the land of the lost weekend, of clocking on and off, of extraordi-
nary roster systems, of the haves and have nots. (Cameron Parker, “Fanciful 
portrayal of workers’ history”, Green Left Weekly 200, 30 August 1995) 
Two years later, Hannah (1997: 3–4) uses the two phrases (land of the long