Every year, the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) asks Australians for their input. This year, they’re asking Australians to help them out with food terms and food-related phrases. However, the appeal to all Australians first began with “nicknames for Australian placenames” in 2019. And some of the results are absolute beauties.
We’ve taken a look through the long, long list and selected some of our favourites. Bear in mind that some towns and places have more than one nickname and we’ve just selected the ones we think are the funniest, strangest, most ironic, or flat-out, say what? Or, some that just made us laugh.
- Bowen is Blowin’ Bowen and Sleepy Hollow
- Bracken Ridge is Broken Fridge
- Brown Plains is Brown Stains
- Buderim is God’s Waiting Ground
- Bundaberg is Chundaberg
- Cairns is Canes and Kansas
- Caloundra is Clowntown
- Charters Towers is Charlie’s Trousers and Fathers Trousers
- Cleveland is Cleverland
- Cunnamulla is Cunnabloodymulla
- Deagon is De a gon Waters
- Deception Bay is Contraception Bay, Depression Bay, Deception Bay and Ipswich by the Mud
- Forest Lake is Flake and Inala Waters
- Gaythorne is Happy Prickle
- Gladstone is Happy Knackers and Sad Rock
- Gold Coast is Glitter Strip, Cold Toast and (this time) God’s Waiting Room
- Goodna is Badna
- Gordonvale is Boredomvale
- Holland Park is Pigeon’s Loft
- Innisfail is Anusfail, Epic Fail, Incestfail and Innis Failure
- Ipswich is Buttwyche, Dipper, Dipswich, Ipshits and Land of the walking Wounded
- Kippa Ring is Fish’s Bum
- Kuranda is Queensland’s Largest Unfenced Insane Asylum
- Labrador is Lockyador and Stabrador
- Maleny is Up The Hill
- Mooloolaba is Muesli Bar
- Mount Isa is Stack City
- Narangba is Nangers
- Nerang is Nerangatan and Sodom on the Nerang
- North Lakes is Little Britain
- Redcliffe is Logan by the Sea
- Rockhampton is Rock on a ham tin and Rockwegia
- southern Moreton Bay islands is Halfwit Sundays
- Stanthorpe is Stantartica
- Surfers Paradise is Suffering Parasite
- Tewantin is Wanno
- Townsville is Broken Hill by the Sea, Mareeba by the Sea, Mt Isa by the Sea, City of Rocks, Horrorsville, Clownsville, Drownsville and Brownsville
- Yeppoon is Jappoon and Yapork
And what about Brisbane?
Brimsbun, Brisbang, Brisbantinople, Brisbin, Brisburg, Brisburn, Brisganistan, Brisneyland, Brissie-Wissie, Brissleburg, Brisso, Brissy, Brisvegas, Brisvenice, Briz, Brizzy and Sun City.
If you’re interested, you can check out the entire, Australia-wide list here.
According to the ANDC, “the informal names we use for our regions, cities, towns, and suburbs” (along with all subsequent appeals) go towards supplementing the database and would help identify possible new entries for the Australian National Dictionary (AND). It would also enrich Australian English and reveal “similarities between the patterns of nicknaming and other forms of word generation in Australian English.” You can check out their initial observations here.
And, you can contribute to the food terms and food-related phrases appeal here.