of Fun Words: Semantic Antics

‘All-sorts of Fun Words’ is a book containing a collection of words that are used by Australians to spice up their speech. Some of the words have come from other countries and some are idiosyncratic to the Australian culture. The words are collected primarily from conversations among Australians during the last 5 years.

A small amount of language included comes from references which are cited. Fifteen figures of speech are defined in ‘All-sorts of Fun Words’ and many examples of each figure of speech are provided.

Fun words lists:

Malapropisms (e.g. suppository for repository)
Mispronunciations (e.g. burgular for burglar)
Acronyms (e.g. POET’S DAY for piss off early, tomorrow’s Saturday)
Initials (e.g. SWS for super women syndrome)
Onomatopoeia (e.g. icky sticky)
Combobulations (e.g. death is terminal living)
Metonymy (e.g. a pie = a rat’s coffin)
Collective nouns (e.g. a fart-ella of school children)
Childish language (e.g. put on your big boy pants)
Exaggeration (e.g. I put everything into it, heart, mind, soul and wallet)
Conversation fillers (e.g. Just saying … just saying)
Block descriptors (e.g. It’s ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse)
Tmesis (e.g. Too bloody late mate)
Word structures (e.g. fart-zilla)
Metaphoric descriptors (e.g. politics on training wheels)

The list of examples in ‘All-sorts of Fun Words’ is not finite. I have documented many more examples of each figure of speech since this book was written. Our Ozzie language expands and changes daily. The figures of speech are endlessly fascinating and often funny. You might like to add your own examples to the lists.