Edward Ellis Morris (1843–1901)

As a dictionary... this is perhaps a little dubious. As a book of quotations, it can be fascinating.

Note that the title is A Dictionary of Austral English. That's not a mistake; it is not "Australian English." It's intended to cover New Zealand as well. And maybe even a little beyond.

That's a bit of a problem in a couple of ways. First, necessarily, it's better at Australian than New Zealand English. And it tries to step back from local usages -- and steps back so far that it seems to be show more standing from somewhere around London. Sometimes this feels less like a dictionary of Australian English than a "Dictionary of Those Oh So Regrettable Differences From Proper English That Turn Up In Australia."

Plus it's more than a century old. Some of what is in here is out of date. More to the point, many, many new words have evolved since this book was compiled. If you want to go to Australia or New Zealand and have a reference for the language they use now, this is almost as useless an American dictionary would be. An obvious example: There are no references to "Matildas," or "Waltzing Matildas" -- except in a small corner of Queensland, Australians humped their blueys rather than waltzing their matildas, and the song wasn't widely known yet.

And yet, it's fun. Most dictionaries of localized English include a lot of quotations showing examples of how words are used. But none includes so many quotations, of such a great degree of diversity as this. You won't really learn about Austral/Australian English as it's spoken. But you'll learn a lot about late nineteenth century Australian culture, often in amusing forms. And if you truly want to study the evolution of Australian English, this gives you a nice reference for the period around 1890.

So it's a fun book. Unlike most dictionaries. I have two Australian dictionaries. I use both. But the other one, even though much more comprehensive, is as dry as any ordinary dictionary; all you'll ever do with it is look up words. This one, I actually sat down and scanned each page, looking for interesting entries. And I found more than you'd think. show less

I haven't read all 902 pages of this, just the pieces by the women authors Margaret Seymour and Mary Gaunt.
My thoughts about Margaret Seymour's writing are at https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/01/20/margaret-seymour-in-australias-first-century...
and discovering Mary Gaunt https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/01/20/mary-gaunt-in-australias-first-century-1788-...

Dictionaries