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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>I missed ofTroy,s earlier comment nice 'inverted apostrophe', musick! 
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
"If you want to know the time, ask a policeman." For etymologies without that gnomic "[Ab.]", ask a modern dictionary. The Oxford Concise Australian Dictionary lists borak as (i) adv. (obs.) no, not; (ii) the sense 'fun' we already know about. Australian pidgin, from Wathawurung burag 'no, not'.
QEI.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
'borax' first occurs in 1944, a hundred years after 'borak'.
Well, I had my doubts about this, and subsequently found the following in "Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 6th edition, Electronic Release, 1999":
The Arabic word for borax, baurach, is found in old manuscripts from ancient Persia and Arabia dating 2000 years ago. ... At the end of the 13th century Marco Polo brought borax from Mongolia to Europe. This became the primary European source for use as a soldering and enameling agent.
Frankly, I believe borak, in the course of time, got assimilated to borax (because the latter is more widely known) rather than the other way round.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
'borax' in the sense of 'borak' first occurs in 1944, a hundred years after 'borak'.
Furthermore, I have now researched who the Wathawurung were, and have to share this with you all. They lived in the area west of Melbourne, from Ballarat to the coast. Ballarat lies by Lake Wendouree. Both names are Wathawurung. The story is that the lake got its name when William Yuille, who pastoralist who founded the Ballaarat (sic) station, asked a native woman its name and she said wendaaree, 'go away'.
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