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Australia day is nearly upon us! And that means it's time to throw another steak on the barbie and say real Aussie things like "ridgy didge".
Flaming heck, what's that even mean, "ridgy didge"? I've been saying it for years in sentences like,
I'm true blue, fair dinkum, ridgy didge, dinky die Aussie.
Does anyone know what "ridgy didge" means and where it came from?
Wiktionary says
ridgy didge, fanciful diminutive of obsolete ridge (“real; used in reference to gold”).
Australian, colloquial from 1953.Sense 1: Genuine, authentic, true; honest, upright.
Are you ridgy-didge? - Do you really mean that? Are you telling the truth?Sense 2: Good, fine.
Regarding that obsolete usage, OED says
ridge, n.2 Cant. Now only U.S. [Origin obscure.] Gold; gold coin. Also, any metal coin.
ridge-cully, a goldsmith.
I doubt the didge part means anything at call - it's just reduplication (repetitive alliteration) along the lines of Okey-dokey, higgledy-piggledy, etc.
