Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia

by Edward Ellis Morris

1884. E. P. Ramsay, `Fisheries Exhibition Literature,' vol. v. p. 311:

"Another good table-fish is the `bull's-eye,' a beautiful salmon-red fish with small scales. . . . At times it enters the harbours in considerable numbers; but the supply is irregular."

<hw>Bulls-wool</hw>, <i>n</i>. colloquial name for the inner portion of the covering of the <i>Stringybark-tree</i> (q.v.). This is a dry finely fibrous substance, easily disintegrated by rubbing between the hands. It forms a valuable tinder for kindling a fire in the bush, and is largely employed for that purpose. It is not unlike the matted hair of a bull, and is reddish in colour, hence perhaps this nickname, which is common in the Tasmanian bush.

<hw>Bully</hw>, <i>n</i>. a Tasmanian fish, <i>Blennius tasmanianus</i>, Richards., family <i>Blennidae</i>.

<hw>Bulrush</hw>, <i>n</i>. See <i>Wonga</i> and <i>Raupo</i>.

<hw>Bung, to go</hw>, <i>v</i>. to fail, to become bankrupt. This phrase of English school-boy slang, meaning to go off with an explosion, to go to smash (also according to Barrere and Leland still in use among American thieves), is in very frequent use in Australia. In Melbourne in the times that followed the collapse of the land-boom it was a common expression to say that Mr. So-and-so had "gone bung," sc. filed his schedule or made a composition with creditors; or that an institution had "gone bung," sc. closed its doors, collapsed. In parts of Australia, in New South Wales and Queensland, the word "bung" is an aboriginal word meaning "dead," and even though the slang word be of English origin, its frequency of use in Australia may be due to the existence of the aboriginal word, which forms the last syllable in <i>Billabong</i> (q.v.), and in the aboriginal word <i>milbung</i> blind, literally, eye-dead.

(a) The aboriginal word.

1847. J. D. Lang, `Cooksland,' p. 430:

"A place called Umpie Bung, or the dead houses."
[It is now a suburb of Brisbane, Humpy-bong.]

1881. A. C. Grant, `Bush Life in Queensland,' vol. ii. p. 175 [in Blacks' pigeon English]: