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Your finger, you fool
May. 8th, 2002 05:08 pmThere was an article in the paper the other day about what some local place names actually mean.
I was delighted to find out that Wendouree, which is both a large lake in the middle of Ballarat and a suburb of Ballarat means "Bugger off", or "Go Away".
Apparently whoever was naming the lake asked a local woman what it was called and got that response - which he dutifully recorded as being the name.
Poowong is apparently the sound made by the giant worms tunnelling underground (yeah, we have giant worms. They're very nice) - difficult to hear these days what with all the traffic noise, but if you lie in the paddocks around South/West Gippsland you can stil hear it. I should know. :-)
Leongatha means "teeth". Why? How? I can't think of any mimed question that would warrant the response "teeth". Unless of course you were slightly out in your pointing...
Echuca means "meeting of waters". Junction of three major rivers. Kyabram means "many trees". All cut down by the time I lived there. Warragul means meeting place. Warrigal means dingo. Warrigal Rd doesn't go to Warragul, but it does confuse motorists.
I think my favourite would have to be Moomba though. Moomba is one of Melbourne's major festivals, although somewhat in decline now. It was named in the 50s when someone decided to ask the local Aboriginal community for a word meaning "let's get together and have fun". Some years later it was discovered that what they'd actually given us was a word meaning "up your bum".
Moral of story: check with dictionary before naming festivals! :-)
So Australia's one of the few places in the world with a suburb named "bugger off" and a festival named "up your bum". Bet neither of those make it into the tourist information.. :-
I was delighted to find out that Wendouree, which is both a large lake in the middle of Ballarat and a suburb of Ballarat means "Bugger off", or "Go Away".
Apparently whoever was naming the lake asked a local woman what it was called and got that response - which he dutifully recorded as being the name.
Poowong is apparently the sound made by the giant worms tunnelling underground (yeah, we have giant worms. They're very nice) - difficult to hear these days what with all the traffic noise, but if you lie in the paddocks around South/West Gippsland you can stil hear it. I should know. :-)
Leongatha means "teeth". Why? How? I can't think of any mimed question that would warrant the response "teeth". Unless of course you were slightly out in your pointing...
Echuca means "meeting of waters". Junction of three major rivers. Kyabram means "many trees". All cut down by the time I lived there. Warragul means meeting place. Warrigal means dingo. Warrigal Rd doesn't go to Warragul, but it does confuse motorists.
I think my favourite would have to be Moomba though. Moomba is one of Melbourne's major festivals, although somewhat in decline now. It was named in the 50s when someone decided to ask the local Aboriginal community for a word meaning "let's get together and have fun". Some years later it was discovered that what they'd actually given us was a word meaning "up your bum".
Moral of story: check with dictionary before naming festivals! :-)
So Australia's one of the few places in the world with a suburb named "bugger off" and a festival named "up your bum". Bet neither of those make it into the tourist information.. :-
