Authors: Jack Lasenby
As Minnie ran, crying and waving her basket, towards the bottom end of Ward Street, Harry asked, “What’s the knife and steel dance?” but Jack had disappeared. Harry thought he might as well go home, too, just in case.
Deep in the fern, Jack sat in his secret possie. He didn’t think Minnie’s mother would understand about the floating island, and Old Drumble and his barrel of whisky. Mrs Dainty hadn’t understood either, when he’d tried to tell her, and then she’d spun round and caught
him saying, “Unga-Yunga!” and pulling a face after her.
He’d got into trouble for that, yet he’d only been trying to tell her that Andy and Old Drumble were all right.
His father understood and, after he told her, his mother understood, too. She said it was rather a lovely story, when you come to think of it. But she still said there was no need to go repeating that bit about the dog and the barrel of whisky. Certainly not to Mrs Dainty.
“I thought you’d have more sense by now, John Jackman,” his mother told him.
Jack stuck his head out of the pig-fern, and looked towards the bottom end of Ward Street. His father said you had to take people as you found them, but he wasn’t sure what that meant; it didn’t help much, not when they were like Mrs Dainty.
He watched Harry running towards his gate and gave a bark, not as good as Old Drumble’s bark, of course, but still not bad, a noisy huntaway bark, just to give Harry a hurry-up. He barked again and knelt out of sight in the fern in case.
When he went home, he’d tell Mum what he’d said to Minnie and Harry about Old Drumble and the knife and steel dance, and she’d say, “I thought I told you not to repeat that word.”
The factory whistle blew for five o’clock. Jack looked through the pig-fern towards the bottom end of Ward
Street, for his father’s bike. He’d get a double home, and Dad would listen to how he’d told the story of the floating island to Minnie and Harry, and he’d understand. He’d be okay there, sitting on the bar with his father’s arms around him, stopping him from falling off. He’d hold his feet well out, so they wouldn’t get caught in the spokes.
Jack crawled out and sat and waited at the end of the tunnel.
alky
An alcoholic; somebody who can’t stop drinking.
Armed Constabulary
Armed and uniformed men who kept civil order, like police, 1846—1886, and fought like soldiers in the Land Wars. In 1886, the Armed Constabulary was split into the New Zealand Police Force and the Army.
ball cock
The floating ball that controls the water level in a trough.
bamboozle
To fool somebody.
basic slag
A fertiliser farmers used to help grass grow.
batten
A light length of wood used between posts to hold fence wires apart.
beak
Slang for a magistrate or judge.
beaut
Excellent, very good.
belting the hops along
Drinking a lot of alcohol.
bicycle clips
Men wore clips on their trouser cuffs to stop them getting caught in the chain. Women’s bikes had a netting cover over the back wheel to protect their long dresses.
biddy
Woman; often meant critically.
bight
The bend or loop in the end of a pair of reins, or in a rope.
Bill Masseys
Heavy boots got this name from the army boots issued to soldiers during the Great War, when the prime minister was William Massey.
birdcage
The small paddock where horses are paraded before a race.
Blarney Stone
If you kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland, you can talk people into believing anything. And if you believe that sort of nonsense, you’ll believe anything.
blaspheme
To insult religion.
Blondin
A man who was famous for walking the tightrope across high places.
bob
A shilling in the old money. Twelve pennies made a shilling, two shillings made a florin, and twenty shillings made a pound.
bookie
Somebody who took illegal bets on the races. If the horse won, the bookie paid out; if it lost, the bookie kept the money. If the police caught him, the bookie went to prison.
border collie
A breed of sheep dog, often strong-eyed, usually black and white, and used for heading sheep.
bosh
Nonsense.
breaking in
Clearing land for a farm.
bully, a bit of bully
A dog with a bit of bull terrier in him.
bush-burn seed
Cheap grass seed sown in the ashes after the bush and scrub was burnt off.
butcher’s hook
To go crook. (Rhyming slang.)
carrier
A man who owned a lorry for carrying cans of milk and cream to the dairy factory, and spent the rest of the day taking loads from the railway station out to the farms, and goods to the shops.
cattle beast
A cow or steer; sometimes used for wild cattle. You can’t talk of two cattle, but you can say “Two or three cattle beasts.”
chain
An old measurement of twenty-two yards, about twenty metres.
chary
Careful, wary.
chiacking
Teasing.
chivvy
To chase.
chook
A hen—or what we now call a chicken.
chops
Jaws.
clearfell
To clear land by chopping down the trees and scrub.
clobber
Clothes.
clucky
A hen which clucks a lot, showing she’s ready to hatch eggs and bring up the chickens.
cock-and-bull story
A made-up story, a lie.
cocky
A farmer.
collywobbles
Stomach pains, the trots or diarrhoea.
comfrey
A plant that people thought was healing; now thought to be dangerous.
coot
An odd, unreasonable person.
copper Maori
A hangi or umu—an underground oven.
corker
Good.
cough up
Pay up.
cracking, to get cracking
To get going.
Crimson Glory
A scented red rose.
crook
Sick.
cut down Model A
An old Ford car with the body cut down to make a light truck.
dags
Wool clotted with dung.
dicky seat
A folding seat on the back of old cars—where the boot is today. Riding outside in the dicky seat was fun!
dog-tucker
To kill something for dog food.
double, dub
A ride on the bar of a bicycle.
down, to have a down on something
To dislike it.
down to it
Sorry for himself. Out of luck.
drain
A ditch.
dry area
Some districts in New Zealand didn’t have pubs, and they were called dry.
dry fly
A trout hook made to look like a floating fly—and cast upstream.
dub
A double on a bike.
dunny
Slang for lavatory, what’s now called the toilet.
E. Earle Vaile
An early farmer on the pumice lands of the volcanic plateau. He wrote an interesting book,
Pioneering the Pumice
.
elbow grease, put some elbow grease into it
Work harder!
eye dog
A strong-eye dog.
F.A.C
. Farmers Auctioneering Company, a cooperative company (like the Farmers’ Trading Company) that ran general stores for farmers.
fag
A cigarette.
Fair Isle
A Shetland Islands knitting pattern for jerseys.
fib
A small lie.
flatties
Flounder, flatfish.
ford
A shallow place where you can cross a river.
Free Lance
An old New Zealand magazine.
furlong
An old measurement for ten chains or about two hundred metres.
gallows
A wooden frame used to hang people.
galore
Lots.
gaolbird
Somebody in prison.
gelding
A castrated male horse.
gob
Mouth.
Golden Delicious
A sweet gold-green apple.
goorie
Mongrel. An Anglicised (turned into English) form of the Maori word
kuri
—which means a dog.
Granny Smith
A green-skinned apple.
Great War
The First World War, 1914—1918.
grid
A bicycle.
gutsful
A bellyful, too much.
Gypsy Day
1 June, the day that sharemilkers who were shifting farms used to move their herds, their families, and gear.
half-cut
Half-drunk.
hammer, on my hammer
Pestering and bothering me.
handle
A glass beer mug with a handle.
handy dog
One that will work both as a huntaway and a heading dog. An all-rounder.
hangied
Cooked underground in a hangi.
hard stuff
Strong liquor, especially whisky.
haver
To muck around, not knowing what to do, dithering.
having him on
Teasing him.
hawser
Heavy rope.
head
To run ahead and turn back sheep or cattle. So, we say a
header
, or a
heading dog
. Heading dogs’ barks are quiet; they don’t bark much.
herring-gutted
Skinny.
hinaki
An eel trap; also used for prison.
hit the turps
Heavy drinking of alcohol. Here it means that Tuppenny Bill turned to getting drunk every day.
hitting the bottle
Drinking a lot of alcohol.
holder
A dog that will stop and hold a wild pig.
honk
To smell badly.
hoofed it
Walked.
horse paddock
Country schools often had a horse paddock, because many children rode to school. The same paddock was used for playing footy.
hullabaloo
Noise.
huntaway
A noisy dog for driving sheep forward. A good huntaway will bark when told.
hurry-up
An encouragement to hurry.
inch
An old measurement of about two and a half centimetres.
Institute
The New Zealand Countrywomen’s Institute. Meetings were usually on a Wednesday afternoon, in country districts, while the farmers were at the weekly stock sales.
Jeez!
A slang form of Jesus as an exclamation. Gee! might be a shorter form of the same word.
Jersey
A common breed of cow in New Zealand.
jumping the broomstick
A sham wedding in which the partners sometimes jump over a broomstick and say they are married.
kindling
Fine-split wood for lighting a fire.
kissing-bread
The tasty, flakey bread where a double loaf is broken into two.
knife and steel dance
A dangerous dance that used to be performed by deer cullers and high country musterers.
komaty
Dead. Anglicised (turned into English) from the Maori
ka mate
.
larrikins
Yahoos, hoodlums.
lavatory, lavvy, lav
Toilet.
lawsoniana
A common hedge tree on farms.
leading dog
A dog that will take the lead in front of a mob of sheep, showing them the way, and stopping them from breaking and running wild.
leery
Cunning, suspicious.
Lent
A period when Christians remember Jesus going without food in the wilderness—by going without something themselves.
lit out
Took off, ran away.
long acre
The grass along the side of a road.
long in the tooth
Old.
loony bin
A mental hospital. Loony—from lunatic.
magistrate
What we used to call a judge in a lower court in New Zealand.
Maori Wars
What we now call the Land Wars.
maul
A heavy wooden-headed hammer for driving wedges.
meths
Methylated spirits. Drinking it can make you blind and kill you.
moe
Sleep (Maori).
mooch
To wander or stroll.
mosey
A look around.
nag
Horse.
nick
Run or take a shortcut.
nicker
A pound in the old money.
nineteen to the dozen
Talking very fast without stopping.
not on your Nelly
Rhyming slang: Not on your Nelly Duff = puff = life. So it means “Not on your life!” or “Not likely!”
nut case
A mad person.
on the swag
Carrying a swag, that is being a swagger—on the road.
out the monk
Asleep, drunk, or unconscious.
over the moon
Excited.
pagan
Non-Christian.
Phar Lap
A famous racehorse which was born in New Zealand, won lots of races including the Melbourne Cup in Australia, and died—perhaps of poison—in the U.S.A. You can see his stuffed hide in the Melbourne museum, or his skeleton in Wellington museum.
perked up
Cheered up.
pie funnel
A china support for a piecrust during cooking. It usually has a hole for letting out steam.
Pied Piper
If you don’t know it, ask your teacher to read you “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” a poem by Robert Browning.
pikau
A big sack sewn up at both ends, split open across the middle of one side, and thrown over a horse’s back to make a large bag either side. Also the usual name for a sugarbag used as a backpack.
Pikau
is a Maori word meaning to carry on the back, to piggyback somebody.
piss
Alcohol, usually beer.
pisshead
A drunkard.
plastered
Drunk.
Plymouth
An American car.
Plymouth Brethren
A Christian religious movement.
point the finger
To accuse somebody.
pointers
The two bright stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri, which seem to point to the Southern Cross, and to move around it.
pooks
Pukekos.
poorman’s orange
Grapefruit.
possie
A safe place of your own, a favourite spot, sometimes a hiding place.
poultice
Something soft and hot that is bandaged on to a wound or sore to relieve pain and stop infection. People said a hot poultice would “draw” a boil.
province
A region of New Zealand, for example, the Waikato Province.
pub-crawl
Having a drink in every pub in a street or town.
puku
Belly.
punt
A flat-bottomed, shallow, square-ended boat, usually poled rather than rowed.
push
A bunch or gang of people.
quack
Doctor.