The Aside Podcasts are a free resource supported by Drama Victoria - Australia’s oldest Drama Association

In this episode of The Aside, we translate a number of words from Liz Morden's Monologue from Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

Links below for the sources.

Please feel free to email [email protected] to ask a question. We will try and answer on a future podcast.

Sources:

https://www.hamptonhilltheatre.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-07/Programme%20-%20Our%20Country%27s%20Good_0.pdf

https://www.mansioningles.com/recursos149.htm

https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/convict-sydney/flash-language

https://sites.google.com/site/motman/Home/information/slang

https://writinginmargins.weebly.com/home/nymphidia-and-the-fairies-of-michael-drayton#:~:text=Katharine%20Briggs%20suggested%20in%20An,hang%20for%20a%20halfpenny.%22

https://sites.google.com/site/motman/Home/information/slang

https://www.definition-of.com/mother+of+all+saints

List of words:

Shifts it’s bob – moves out of the way

A bob can be the weight attached to a plumb line. A ship is said to bob out when it bounces and bobs in heavy seas without making any remarkable headway. This is a particularly distressing occurrence for those afflicted with seasickness. Waves bobble when they seem to crash without any specific set or direction as during cross currents or riptides.

Born under a Ha’penny planet - halfpenny = worthless, planet – circumstances of births

Said of any person remarkably unsuccessful in his attempts or profession.

Nibbler -nibbler a pilferer or petty thief

Crapped - crap’d - hanged

Titter – girl, young girl, toddler girl, small laugh of a child, women’s breast

Wiper – Handkerchief

Shoulder-clapped – arrested

Cudgel – short thick stick/weapon

Prig – a thief, or stolen, to steal or pilfer

Trine for a maker – wait for a

Wap for a winnie – pull for a horse

If she will not lie with a man for a penny, let her hang for a halfpenny

Dimber mort -pretty girl

Swell – elegantly dressed, or stylishly dressed

mollisher – a woman, a villian’s mistress

Miss Laycock – female genitals, prostitute

Mug – face

Sell my Mother of saints – female genitals

Swell cove – “swell” man.

Bobcull – good natured man

Mossie face - a slang, potentially endearing term for the pudendal region of a woman

Shiners - money

Spice (steal) the swells – steal from the gentlemen (steal the loot)

Lifts it – steal it /take it

Stir my stumps – move my legs

Swell Squeals beef – gentleman shouts ”thief”

Snoozie – constable for the night watch

Nibbed – caught / arrested

Up the ladder to rest – walk up the ladder/stairs to be hanged.

Nap – get/receive

Across the herrring pond – across the coean

Rantum scantum – sex (for food/water or preferential treatment on the ship – which was common)

Nob it here - become A person of wealth or high social position (short for noble)

Bobcull gov – good natured government person

Niffynaffy - easy

Rufflers – vagabonds/vagrant

Nibbed – arrested again

Up the ladder to rest – up the ladder/stairs to be hanged to death