From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 17/09/2024 11:08 p.m., Peter Moylan wrote:   
   > On 17/09/24 16:44, Silvano wrote:   
   >> Peter Moylan hat am 17.09.2024 um 01:32 geschrieben:   
   >   
   >>> That reminds me of an incident in an earlier job of hers, when she   
   >>>  worked in a psychiatric hospital. A small town north of Newcastle   
   >>> had had no doctor for a long time, but Australia has a policy of   
   >>> getting immigrant doctors out to rural areas, so they finally got   
   >>> someone. That doctor sent one of his patients down to the psych   
   >>> hospital for assessment. The clinical notes said that he was   
   >>> obsessed with attacking birds.   
   >>>   
   >>> When interviewed, one of the first things he said was "Stone the   
   >>> crows, I don't know why they sent me here."   
   >>   
   >> I assume that "stone the crows" is a common idiom in that part of   
   >> Australia. 1) What does it mean? 2) Do native speakers of other   
   >> varieties of English know and use that idiom?   
   >   
   > Good questions. It's an Australian expression, and more specifically   
   > from the language of rural areas rather than the cities. I believe it's   
   > understood in England, although the English clearly view it as an   
   > Australianism. I have no idea whether it is also known in the rest of   
   > GB&Ireland. It is probably not understood in North America, except among   
   > those exposed to a lot of Australian literature.   
   >   
   > Meaning: it's a general expression of surprise or incredulity. An   
   > approximate equivalent is "Bloody Hell".   
   >   
   > Etymology: nobody is sure. It could derive from times when farmers hired   
   > people to throw stones at crows who were damaging the crops, but   
   > personally I can't see how that would evolve into an expression of   
   > surprise. I suspect that it's just a phrase that someone made up, and   
   > adopted by others who found it colourful.   
      
   OED labels the expression "esp. Australian". They find it in three   
   Australian books from the 1930s, then a couple post-war which don't have   
   any obvious Aus connection. One is "The Otterbury Incident" by Cecil Day   
   Lewis (1948), a book for children which sounds interesting.   
      
   These things do get around. Some British readers would surely have been   
   exposed to it through the "Barry McKenzie" comic strip which ran in   
   _Private Eye_ during the 1960s, though it might have been lost in the   
   profusion of Australianisms (real and fanciful) which adorned that strip.   
      
   I had a distant memory of "Stone the crows!" being used by a couple of   
   stray Australian characters who wandered through another comic strip,   
   "Pogo", at some point. Wikipedia helps:   
      
   "There are occasional forays into exotic locations as well, including at   
   least two visits to Australia (during the Melbourne Olympics in 1956,   
   and again in 1961). The Aussie natives include a bandicoot, a lady   
   wallaby, and a mustachioed, aviator kangaroo named "Basher"."   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)