Timeline for Why do Aussies use "cactus" to mean "dead," "useless," or "broken"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 20, 2021 at 11:56 | comment | added | Ben Aveling | I've never heard 'cactused', as in: "My computer is cactused!" It's just cactus, as in "My computer is cactus". | |
| Aug 5, 2019 at 1:19 | comment | added | nnnnnn | @goldilocks - Rhyming slang is very common here in Australia, so it isn't at all bizarre when new rhyming slang terms are created, but having said that I'm sure in this case it is not rhyming slang. "Cactus" and "useless" don't rhyme, and although rhyming slang often involves a longer phrase that has been shortened such that the rhyming word isn't said, "cactus" isn't really part of any obvious longer phrases. | |
| Jul 3, 2015 at 5:21 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Jul 3, 2015 at 5:25 | |||||
| Jan 3, 2015 at 23:59 | comment | added | David Hammen | Also see Alan Dodd (1926), "The Campaign against Prickly-Pear in Australia: Work of the Commonwealth Prickly-Pear Board," Nature 117:625-626 and Queensland Government, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (2011), Fact sheet: Declared Class 1 and 2 Pest Plant, The prickly pear story. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 22:51 | comment | added | goldilocks | Contra the first comment, it seems much more believable that an event of generational significance (the caterpillars vs. the cactus) would work its way into popular slang a decade or so later than that it was some bizarre resurrection of 19th century street cryptography. @JonHanna An online reference to "Cassell's Dictionary of Slang" claims kark was not used until the 1970's and that it is derived from the sound of a crow (but also, of course, close to "cack"). | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 16:10 | comment | added | Jon Hanna | There's other Australian slang kark it meaning to die or stop working, and cactus could also come from that. I'd be more inclined to believe that one if no definitive or reasonably reliable source could be found for the prickly pear explanation, but it could well be the prickly pear thing too, or even a conflation of both. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 16:02 | history | edited | user66974 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 1 character in body
|
| Jan 3, 2015 at 15:55 | comment | added | WS2 | But could be rhyming slang for 'useless'. The Aussies not only imported Cockney rhyming slang but added a lot of their own to it. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 15:50 | history | edited | user66974 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 283 characters in body
|
| Jan 3, 2015 at 15:37 | history | answered | user66974 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |