Digger Slang - First World War

First World War

The first influence on Digger slang was Australia's involvement in the First World War. The soldiers themselves were not called Diggers until well into the war, the name first entering common use around 1917, with the first recorded use in something other than the traditional goldmining sense occurring in 1916. Originally, they were known as "Anzacs" after the abbreviation ANZAC for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, a name that quickly entered the mainstream lexicon and was even the subject of federal legislation within a year of its coinage. The War Precautions Act forbade the use of "ANZAC" in the name of any private residence, boat, vehicle, or charitable institution, on penalty of a £100 fine or six months in prison. The Australian government even petitioned the British government to enact similar restrictions.

The men of the Australian Imperial Force, and the women who nursed them, coined many words of Digger slang, including "Blighty" for Great Britain (it being the name for a wound severe enough to get one returned to Britain for hospitalization), "chocolate soldiers" (and thence "chocs") for soldiers who were believed to be unwilling to fight, and "six-bob-a-day tourists" for the soldiers themselves (a reference to their daily wages of six shillings).

As well as gaining slang versions of many French words from the areas in which the soldiers fought, such as "naipoo" for "no way" (taken from the French "il n'y a plus"), "tray bon" (from "très bon", and from which other Digger slang words such as "bonsterina" and "bontosher" were in turn derived), "plonk" (from "vin blanc") for cheap wine, and "cushy" for "easy"; the soldiers also incorporated Arabic words learned at their training grounds in Egypt, such as "saieeda" for "goodbye" and "imshi" for "go", and, most notably "bint" for a woman (who were also called "tabbies"). One slang phrase, going "to the top of the Wazir" derives its meaning, of doing something to excess, from a troop riot in the red light district Cairo on Good Friday 1915, over the prices being charged by prostitutes and the rumour that they were intentionally infecting the men with sexually transmitted diseases.

Many military-related words and phrases were also coined. The slang name "daisy-cutter", for an anti-personnel bomb, originated with Anzac slang, for example. Soldiers lived in "dugouts", fired from "possies" (positions), and fought against "Johnny Turk" or "Jacko". And they suffered from the "Gallipoli Gallop", dysentery. Like the U.S. Navy's "scuttlebutt", rumours shared amongst soldiers around the water-wagons, manufactured by Furphy & Sons, were known as "Furphys".

Some of the slang originated in the street slang of the larrikin pushes, such as "stoush" for "fight", which led to such words as "reinstoushments" for reinforcements. One of the essential components of the slang was the prolific (for the time) use of swearwords.

Much of this slang was collected by W. H. Downing in his book Digger Dialects, which was published in 1919 (and reprinted in 1990).