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Strayan Dictionary book cover
Strayan Dictionary
Avo, Arvo, Mabo, Bottle-o and Other Aussie Wordos
2019
First Published
3.83
Average Rating
256
Number of Pages

Following up on the success of Strayapedia, Dom has put together a dictionary of all things 'Strayan. This is a funny, topical stocking stuffer for the Christmas market, and the perfect gift for anyone who loves The Chaser or The Betoota Advocate. See the attached sample definitions for a sense of the whole book. Avo - avocado, because "cado" is just so onerous to say. Increasingly Australians "smash" their avocado as opposed to slicing it, also for laziness reasons. It was suggested by the social researcher Bernard Salt that young Australians couldn't afford to buy property because they blow their disposable income on "smashed avocado" at fancy cafe. As one of the baby boomers who profited enormously from the massive increases in real estate value, pricing millennials out of the market, Salt was fortunate that the understandable backlash to his article didn't lead to him getting smashed himself. Bathers - swimmers Battler - 1. Someone of limited financial means. 2. Someone of comfortable financial means who views themselves as hard done by because most of their disposable income goes on their foolishly large mortgage. Howard's battlers - People who voted for John Howard because they shared his belief in ordinary enterprising Australians doing it for themselves without the interfering government getting in the way, and who were subsequently lavishly rewarded by his middle-class welfare programs. BHP - Broken Hill Proprietary, a major mining company that was once known as "the big Australian." Its merger with the UK-based Billiton saw it follow the Australian tradition of hanging out in London, doing a little bar work, and ultimately coming back home when things didn't work out—consequently, the company is now known just as BHP. Its namesake hill in Western NSW is now considerably more broken, thanks to BHP mining it until it no longer exists. Nevertheless, as one of Australia's largest companies, it has a proud record of job creation both at home and in Papua New Guinea, where its Ok Tedi mine created many jobs fixing the 1300 square kilometers of countryside it polluted and helping the 50,000 people affected. Billy - a bush teapot, originally made from an empty tin of "bully beef," and generally stoked in a campfire. Later usage commemorates the prime minister Billy McMahon, whom most Australians wanted to throw in a fire. Bogan - a derogatory term for lower-class Australians. Bogans may be identified by their flannelette markings and mullet plumage, and are found mostly in Maccas car parks, sitting on the bonnets of the highly polished V8s they collect as trophies. Bogans undertake an annual migration to Canberra for a ritual known as the "Summernats," and are considered an endangered species thanks to their prodigious consumption of Winnie Blue cigarettes.

Avg Rating
3.83
Number of Ratings
24
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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1 STARS
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Author

Dominic Knight
Author · 7 books

Dominic Knight was one of the founders of The Chaser satirical newspaper in 1999, and also one of its destroyers in 2004 after the group finally acknowledged that it would never turn a profit. Since then he’s worked on the team’s various projects in print, stage, radio, television and online. Most recently he wrote for ABC-TV’sThe Hamster Wheel, Yes We Canberra! and The Chaser’s War On Everything. In recent years, Dominic has begun writing fiction in an attempt to spend less time with his Chaser compatriots. His first novel Disco Boy (2009) portrayed the career travails of a disaffected law graduate suspiciously like himself, and its successor Comrades (2010) delved into the grubby world of student politics. He’s working on a third novel, which may appear in 2013 in the unlikely event that he gets his act together. Dominic regularly appears at various writers’ festivals whether he’s invited to speak or not, and is currently on the board of the National Young Writers’ Festival. In 2012, Dominic began hosting Evenings on ABC Local Radio in NSW and the ACT. He can be heard from 7-10pm Monday to Friday on 702 ABC Sydney, 666 ABC Canberra, 1233 ABC Newcastle and ABC stations across NSW. Dominic has lived in Sydney nearly all of his life and plays the bass reasonably well and tennis appallingly. He is overly fond of karaoke.

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