LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Australian English: Words
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Today, Australian English, famous for its air of novelty, is something of a living museum, preserving.. eighteenth and nineteenth century regional words from Cornwall, Wessex, the Midlands, East Anglia, Northumbria, Scotland and Ireland.
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Australian English has some vowels not used in some other kinds of English. For example, the words bad and lad do not rhyme because bad has a long vowel and lad has a short one. Also, cot doesn't sound like caught and bother doesn't rhyme with father.
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Australian English makes far more frequent use of diminutive s than other varieties of English. These which can be formed in a number of ways such as adding -o or -ie to the ends of abbreviated words. They can be used to indicate familiarity, although in many speech communities the diminutive form is more common than the original word or phrase.
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Any visitor from abroad who thinks that Australian (that’s ‘Strine’) is simply a weird sounding variant of English is in for a surprise. For starters, many Australians don’t speak Australian at home – they speak Italian, Lebanese, Vietnamese, Turkish or Greek. These languages then influence the way they speak English. The colloquial language may lose you in a strange maze of Australian words. The meaning of some words in Australia is completely different from that in other English-speaking countries – some commonly used words have been shortened almost beyond recognition, while others are derived from Aboriginal languages, or from the slang used by early convict settlers.There is a slight regional variation in the Australian accent, while the difference between city and country speech is mainly a matter of speed. Some of the most famed Aussie words are hardly heard at all –‘mates’ are more common than ‘cobbers’.
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This dictionary is the first comprehensive, historically based record of the 10,000 words and idioms that make up the Australian contribution to the English Language. It records the historical development of Australian words and phrases, from their earliest use to the present day, providing evidence of this history in some 60,000 dated and referenced quotations drawn from over 9,000 Australian sources. Each entry provides a fascinating insight into Australia's rich and diverse linguistic heritage. The Australian National Dictionary is an essential reference for those interested in Australian society, history, and culture, and makes an invaluable contribution to the study of the English language worldwide.
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One of the difficulties with a book of this kind is that Australian English includes words from both Britain and the United States. At times the reader is told that a word is used in Australia and Britain, but not in the United States. However information of this kind is not always given. Thus British users will be surprised to find that 'poofter' and 'brickie's cleavage' are listed as Australianisms (they're there because they are not used in America), and American users will be surprised to find 'ankle-biter' and 'rug-rat' listed as Australianisms (they're there because they are not used in Britain).
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