Oh blech!
"sluggers"? ?
What nasty connotations this has - and could be construed to be somewhat derogatory to the boys out there!
I am astonished to see that this word is attributed to my neck of the woods (West Oz). I've always lived here and have never heard it - well, apart from it being the name of a baseball-themed restaurant down the road. Like Hev says - we have other names for this little item of swimming attire, which are usually just called "speedos", but "sluggers"? No thanks!

Someone sent me a site about dinosaur-bone digging in Oz, and it was near the very bottom of the continent (SE region), near a town called Inverloch. I know that the town that is just about the southernmost part of NZ is Invercargill. Does inver- have something to do with a southern location? Say--there's a street near me called Inverness--but it's not the southernmost end of town, let alone the continent. Loch and ness make we wonder if it's Scottish. Cargill is a mystery to me.

My lucky dip was:
white rabbits

you have to say it on the first day of any month which contains the letter R: White rabbits!

It says this is in Victoria, but having lived here for 5 years I've never heard it; we just say "A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month" and all the silly follow-ons. My husband, who grew up in Vic, tells me that people say "White rabbits" when they put out a campfire, to make the smoke go away!

alexis

According to xrefer (http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=443769&secid=.1.-#s.1.-) inver is Celtic for river mouth. So Inverness is the town at the mouth of the river Ness.

Bingley

Alexis ~

Could you expand on the first-day-of-the-month ritual? Is this exchange something one does on the first of every month? Typically with whom? And what is the complete litany, please?

you have to say it on the first day of any month which contains the letter R: White rabbits!

Similar things in the UK when I grew up, except that in my family we had to say 'Rabbits and Hares' rather than 'White Rabbits'. I think I knew both variations before I lived overseas, but I'd never heard the 'pinch and a punch' until I got to Oz. So maybe that's the one they should put on the word map?

In my understanding too, the words (whichever version you go with) have to be the very first ones you utter that month to be effective. (some kind of goodluck incantation?? - there's more to this than I realised when I started...)
All well and good if you a)remember what day of the month it is first thing in the morning when you wake up or b)don't ever indulge in the kind of latenight activity where midnight passes unheeded and you find you've said something else before you realise!

And this is the first time I've heard of the limitation to months which contain the letter R - I always thought it was all months. The letter R rule was for eating oysters or when to water cacti or something.

inver is Celtic for river mouth. So Inverness is the town at the mouth of the river Ness.

Which is all well and good, but 'ness' is a standard element meaning headland. (Check in the Norse section on Bingley's link.) So how did it get to be the name of a river? Is this pure coincidence or what?

> "A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month"

Wow - so I could expand my potential for physical abuse twelvefold... usually I have to wait until someone's birthday, and it's "A pinch to grow an inch and a sock to grow a block."

Typically, this is for kids - particularly siblings, in our case anyway... it can only be said before midday. Basically whoever remembers it's the first day of the new month first races up to someone and punches them on the arm, saying "pinch and a punch for the first day of the month." the other kid - if they can catch the first, who typically runs away (if they know what's good for them!) as fast as they can, can say things like "a hit and a kick for being so quick," "pinch and a pull for being so cruel," and maybe others - help me out here if you know others! - all accompanied by the appropriate gestures. I have no idea how or where this originated; I can't believe it's exclusively Aussie!

alexis

there was some ritual for your birthday, with getting punched in your upper arm.. girls always did it gently, boys, always did it hard.. even to girls.. until the teen years, when they caught on, it wasn't the best way to win a woman heart. there was some chant that went with it.. but i don't remember it all..

nothing for the first of the month..

but when my kids were young, there was a similar game for VW beetles.. the first person to see a VW beetle called it-- and got to punch some one..

called it-- that what we said, that what we did--

going out, the the first person to call shotgun had dibs on the front seat, because they called it.. conflict over TV, or where to eat out? some one would have called it-- pizza hut, or TGIF, or Sizzler.. and dibs-- i have first dibs on whatever-- the bathroom after a long trip, anything of kid value!

Back to rabbits and months, when I was a child (60s, Georgia, USA) we had a pretty broad approach to the issue. For good luck, you were supposed to say "rabbit rabbit" on the first day of the month. Every month. Re Bridget's caveat, we didn't have too many late nights as kids so it worked pretty well most of the time .

the first person to see a VW beetle called it-- and got to punch some one..

I know this game as Punch Buggy. The kid who spotted the Beetle yelled "Punch Buggy Red!" (or whatever color it was) and punched the kid next to him/her.

A similar game is Beaver Whacker*, which involves vehicles with that fake wood-paneling. Whoever saw one would try to be the first to yell "Beaver Whacker!" and slap the kid next to him/her.


*Yeah, I know. Shut up back there, wouldja?