On Thursday morning a new radio news reader reported on matters in the famous town of Coal-Bin-A-Bin.

The good folk of Colbinabbin (best referred to as Colbo) would have been spluttering over their Corn Flakes – again.

Our region has a few of these tongue traps and for their edumecation we pass on some of them.

Goornong: as in door-nong, not goo-nong.

Junortoun: pronounced joo-ner-t’n, absolutely not Juner-town.

Marong: m’wrong, not mah wrong. She’s never wrong.

Jackass Flat: can we puhlease get this right. It’s ass as in donkey, and there is not even remotely an “r” in it.

Maldon: like the stuff you find in your shower cubicle on a muggy day, not named after a former Australian Prime Minister.

Weeroona: some have unfortunately pronounced the “wee” in referring to the lake, but it’s w’-roo-nah.

Moaning

A few of us were having a bit of a moan over a few beers the other night after yet another chanting  (note, not en-chanting)  protest in Bendigo.

It was noted that in recent weeks there have been efforts to hijack the nation’s flag as a symbol of their cause. Then came the hijacking of our gentle city as the theatrical backdrop for their upset. But one mate said the ultimate in rude hijacking was their use of the Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi chant.

“They’ve ruined a perfectly good cricket chant,” he moaned. Well, maybe. But the truth is WE hijacked it first.

DTM has long wondered where this came from. Turns out, it’s not, umm, really Australian! Sorry.

It was a British rugby chant: Oggy Oggy Oggy Oi Oi Oi. It dates back at least to the 1940s in rugby but it’s even older than that.

One strong theory is that it comes from parts of Cornwall where “oggy” was slang for a Cornish pasty and Oggy Oggy Oggy was the cry of mobile food vendors. If a miner wanted one, he’d shout back: Oi Oi Oi.

Funny to think of folk standing outside the Bendigo Town Hall screaming out for Cornish pasties… right next to the bronze statue of the Cornish miner.

Rivalry

One last mention about that “Weeroona” thing which touches on the magnificent Bendigo-Ballarat rivalry.

The Bendigo Advertiser’s unnamed Ballarat correspondent on July 13, 1878, warbled:

“Lake Weeroona. I like that. It seems to me as musical as Wendouree, but I don't think you will be able to make quite such a show as we with our 300 or 400 acres of water, and its rural fringes of tree and sward, and Pyrenees and Grampian outlines purpling the western and north -western distances. Pardon the amor loci.”

Yep, nice purple prose, but our lake never caught fire.