There is nothing Australians seem to like more than to shorten words or phrases to something more instantly recognisable within the local dialect. Colloquialisms abound in the land down under and some of them are very humorous indeed. This abbreviation of terms applies to most things which understandably includes the currency of the land.
A great deal of the currency nicknames have come across from the United Kingdom when Australians used the coin of the realm. True to Aussie form however we have come up with our own fair share of colloquial tags. Australia has always benefited from the rich diversity of its people who have brought with them their own language and sayings. It is undoubtedly a very colourful country especially from the point of view of its vocabulary.
Looking back to a time before decimalisation in 1966 we had pounds, shillings and pence as our currency. The denominations therein had a huge variety of nicknames which were in the main derived from their British equivalent. Here are some early pre-decimal examples.
The coinage of the time had some notable names with the words:
The Sixpence – 6d – was often referred to as a ‘zack’ which was an Australian / New Zealand term which referred to a coin of small denomination such as a sixpence or 5 cent coin. The term was also used to refer to short prison term such as 6 months.
One Shilling – 1/ – A Bob
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Two Shillings or Florin – 2/ – Two Bob.
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Ten Shillings – 10/ – Ten Bob, Half a Quid, a Teddy or Half a Fiddly (derived from the one pound slang)
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One Pound – £1 – Quid, Fiddly or Saucepan (rhyming slang for saucepan lid). The term quid from what I have found seems to be derived from the Latin word where quid means ‘what’ as in ‘quid pro quo’ to give something for something else. The word Quid was also used in connection to multiple pounds eg: 5 quid etc.
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Five Pounds – £5 – Fiver, Deep Sea Diver or Spin
With the advent of decimalisation in 1966 and a range of all new notes to play with the locals had a field day.
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One Dollar – $1 – Brown Bomber, Rooboy, Queenie + Bung buck (highly insulting term referring to the indigenous people depicted thereon.) The buck part coming from the American slang for their one dollar note. Oxford Scholar hailing back to the rhyming slang of our English roots.
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Two Dollars – $2 – Sick Sheep (reference the green colour and the merino ram thereon) and Greenback borrowed from the U.S. slang
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Five Dollars – $5 – Fiver, Skydiver, Pink Lady, Prawn, Piglet & Rasher (as in bacon due to reddish pink and white colouration)
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Ten Dollars – $10 – Blue Swimmer, Blue Heeler (name of a cattle dog), Tenner, Pav (this derived from Pavarotti from the Three Tenors- hint: tenners), a Banjo (from the picture of A.B. “Banjo” Paterson thereon and Ayrton Senna (rhyming slang for tenner).
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Twenty Dollars – $20 – Red Lobster or just Lobster, Redback & Rusky (all terms pertaining to the red colouration of the note and that of the Soviet flag).
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Fifty Dollars – $50 – Pineapple, McGarrett (after the lead character from T.V’s Hawaii 5-0 series / Book ‘em Danno), Yellow Peril and Banana.
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One Hundred Dollars – $100 – Original Paper Note – Grey Nurse (after the shark), Ghost & Bradman ( referring to Donald Bradman’s 99.94 test cricket batting average) .
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One Hundred Dollars – $100 – Polymer Note – Jolly Green Giant, Green Soldier (Monash portrait), Avocado, Watermelon, Tree Frog & Peppermint.
All in all a rather colorful collective of terms for the monetary items we take for granted in everyday life. If anyone out here has any further terms they would like to add I would be happy to edit this with their name included as source.
