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Baal, or Bail, interj. and adv. 'An aboriginal expression of disapproval.' (Gilbert Parker, Glossary to 'Round the Compass in Australia,' 1888.) It was the negative in the Sydney dialect.
1893. J. F. Hogan, 'Robert Lowe,' p. 271, quoting from 'The Atlas' (circa 1845):
'Traces, however, of the Egyptian language are discoverable among the present inhabitants, with whom, for instance, the word 'Bale' or 'Baal' is in continual use . . . .' [Evidently a joke.]
Babbler, n. a bird-name. In Europe, 'name given, on account of their harsh chattering note, to the long-legged thrushes.' ('O.E.D.') The group 'contains a great number of birds not satisfactorily located elsewhere, and has been called the ornithological waste-basket.' ('Century.') The species are--
The Babbler-- Pomatostomus temporalis, Vigors and Horsfield.
Chestnut-crowned B.-- P. ruficeps, Hart.
Red-breasted B.-- P. rubeculus, Gould.
White-browed B.-- P. superciliosus, Vigors and Horsfield.
Back-block, adj. from the interior.
1891. Rolf Boldrewood, 'Sydneyside Saxon,' vol. xii. p. 215:
''What a nice mare that is of yours!' said one of the back-block youngsters.'
Back-blocker, n. a resident in the back-blocks.
1870. 'The Argus,' March 22, p. 7, col. 2
'I am a bushman, a back blocker, to whom it happens about once in two years to visit Melbourne.'
1892. E. W. Hornung, 'Under Two Skies,' p. 21:
'As for Jim, he made himself very busy indeed, sitting on his heels over the fire in an attitude peculiar to back-blockers.'
Back-blocks, n. (1) The far interior of Australia, and away from settled country. Land in Australia is divided on the survey maps into blocks, a word confined, in England and the United States, to town lands.
(2) The parts of a station distant from the frontage (q.v.).
1872. Anon. 'Glimpses of Life in Victoria,' p. 31:
'. . . we were doomed to see the whole of our river-frontage purchased. . . . The back blocks which were left to us were insufficient for the support of our flocks, and deficient in permanent water-supply. . . .'
1880. J. Mathew, Song--'The Bushman':
'Far, far on the plains of the arid back-blocks A warm-hearted bushman is tending his flocks. There's little to cheer in that vast grassy sea: But oh! he finds pleasure in thinking of me. How weary, how dreary the stillness must be! But oh! the lone bushman is dreaming of me.'
1890. E. W. Horning, 'A Bride from the Bush,' p. 298:
''Down in Vic' you can carry as many sheep to the acre as acres to the sheep up here in the 'backblocks.''
1893. M. Gaunt, 'English Illustrated, 'Feb., p. 294:
'The back-blocks are very effectual levellers.'
1893. Haddon Chambers, 'Thumbnail Sketches of Australian Life,' p. 33
'In the back-blocks of New South Wales he had known both hunger and thirst, and had suffered from sunstroke.'
1893. 'The Australasian,' Aug. 12, p. 302, col. 1:
'Although Kara is in the back-blocks of New South Wales, the clothes and boots my brother wears come from Bond Street.'
Back-slanging . verbal n. In the back-blocks (q.v.) of Australia, where hotels are naturally scarce and inferior, the traveller asks for hospitality at the stations (q.v.) on his route, where he is always made welcome. There is no idea of anything underhand on the part of the traveller, yet the custom is called back-slanging.
Badger, n. This English name has been incorrectly applied in Australia, sometimes to the Bandicoot, sometimes to the Rock-Wallaby, and sometimes to the Wombat. In Tasmania, it is the usual bush-name for the last.
1829. 'The Picture of Australia,' p. 173:
'The Parameles, to which the colonists sometimes give the name of badger. . . .'
1831. Ross, 'Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 265:
'That delicious animal, the wombat (commonly known at that place [Macquarie Harbour] by the name of badger, hence the little island of that name in the map was so called, from the circumstance of numbers of that animal being at first found upon it).'
1850. James Bennett Clutterbuck, M.D., 'Port Phillip in 1849,' p. 37:
'The rock Wallaby, or Badger, also belongs to the family of the Kangaroo; its length from the nose to the end of the tail is three feet; the colour of the fur being grey-brown.'
1875. Rev. J. G. Wood, 'Natural History,' vol. i. p. 481:
'The Wombat or Australian Badger as it is popularly called by the colonists. . . .'
1891. W. Tilley, 'Wild West of Tasmania,' p. 8:
'With the exception of wombats or 'badgers,' and an occasional kangaroo . . . the intruder had to rely on the stores he carried with him.'
ibid. p. 44:
'Badgers also abound, or did until thinned out by hungry prospectors.'
Badger-box, n. slang name for a roughly- constructed dwelling.
1875. 'Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania,' September, p. 99 ['Port Davey in 1875,' by the Hon. James Reid Scott, M.L.C.]:
'The dwellings occupied by the piners when up the river are of the style known as 'Badger-boxes,' in distinction from huts, which have perpendicular walls, while the Badger-box is like an inverted V in section. They are covered with bark, with a thatch of grass along the ridge, and are on an average about 14 x 10 feet at the ground, and 9 or 10 feet high.'
Bail up, v. (1) To secure the head of a cow in a bail for milking.
(2) By transference, to stop travellers in the bush, used of bushrangers. The quotation, 1888, shows the method of transference. It then means generally, to stop. Like the similar verb, to stick up (q.v.), it is often used humorously of a demand for subscriptions, etc.
1844. Mrs. Chas. Meredith, 'Notes and Sketches of New South Wales,' p. 132:
'The bushrangers . . . walk quickly in, and 'bail up,' i.e. bind with cords, or otherwise secure, the male portion.'
1847. Alex. Marjoribanks, 'Travels in New South Wales,' p. 72:
'. . . there were eight or ten bullock-teams baled up by three mounted bushrangers. Being baled up is the colonial phrase for those who are attacked, who are afterwards all put together, and guarded by one of the party of the bushrangers when the others are plundering.'
1855 W. Howitt, 'Two Years in Victoria,' vol. ii. p. 309:
'So long as that is wrong, the whole community will be wrong,-- in colonial phrase, 'bailed up' at the mercy of its own tenants.'
1862. G. T. Lloyd, 'Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria,' p. 192:
''Come, sir, immediately,' rejoined Murphy, rudely and insultingly pushing the master; 'bail up in that corner, and prepare to meet the death you have so long deserved.''
1879. W. J. Barry, 'Up and Down,' p. 112:
'She bailed me up and asked me if I was going to keep my promise and marry her.'
1880. W. Senior, 'Travel and Trout,' p. 36:
'His troutship, having neglected to secure a line of retreat, was, in colonial parlance, 'bailed up.''
1880. G. Walch, 'Victoria in 1880,' p.133:
'The Kelly gang . . . bailed up some forty residents in the local public house.'
1882. A. J. Boyd, 'Old Colonials,' p. 76:
'Did I ever get stuck-up? Never by white men, though I have been bailed up by the niggers.'
1885. H. Finch-Hatton, 'Advance Australia,' p. 105:
'A little further on the boar 'bailed up' on the top of a ridge.'
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, 'Robbery under Arms,' p. 368:
'One of the young cows was a bit strange with me, so I had to shake a stick at her and sing out 'Bail up' pretty rough before she'd put her head in. Aileen smiled something like her old self for a minute, and said, 'That comes natural to you now, Dick, doesn't it ?' I stared for a bit and then burst out laughing.It was a rum go, wasn't it? The same talk for cows and Christians. That's how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. Some old hand like father, as had been assigned to a dairy settler, and spent all his mornings in the cow-yard, had taken to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. When they came near enough of course he'd pop out from behind a tree, with his old musket or pair of pistols, and when he wanted 'em to stop, 'Bail up, d-- yer,' would come a deal quicker and more natural-like to his tongue than 'Stand.' So 'bail up' it was from that day to this, and there'll have to be a deal of change in the ways of the colonies, and them as come from 'em before anything else takes its place between the man that's got the arms and the man that's got the money.'
Bail, n. 'A framework for securing the head of a cow while she is milked.' ('O.E.D.')
This word, marked in 'O.E.D.' and other Dictionaries as Australian, is provincial English. In the 'English Dialect Dictionary,' edited by Joseph Wright, Part I., the word is given as used in 'Ireland, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and New Zealand.' It is also used in Essex.
1872. C. H. Eden, 'My Wife and I in Queensland,' p. 83:
'In every milking yard is an apparatus for confining a cow's head called a 'bail.' This consists of an upright standiron, five feet in height, let into a framework, and about six inches from it another fixed at the heel, the upper part working freely in a slit, in which are holes for a peg, so that when the peg is out and the movable standiron is thrown back, there is abundance of room for a cow's head and horns, but when closed, at which time the two standirons are parallel to each other and six inches apart, though her neck can work freely up and down, it is impossible for her to withdraw her head . . .'
1874. W. M. B., 'Narrative of Edward Crewe,' p. 225:
'The former bovine female was a brute to manage, whom it would have been impossible to milk without a 'bail.' To what man or country the honour of this invention belongs, who can tell? It is in very general use in the Australian colonies; and my advice to any one troubled with a naughty cow, who kicks like fury during the process of milking, is to have a bail constructed in their cow-house.'
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