[Dixielandjazz] Fair dinkum

[Marek Boym]

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I would not have posted this to the list, as it's off topic, had listmate
Ross Anderson not issued a double album titled "27 Years of Fair Dinkum
Dixieland."

Cheers

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שולח: *A Phrase A Week, *
נושא: *A Phrase A Week - Fair dinkum*
 Fair dinkum Meaning

Honest; genuine; fair play.
Origin

[image: Fair dinkum]There could hardly be a more Southern Hemisphere
expression than 'fair dinkum'. The phrase, which is hardly used outside
Australia and New Zealand, conjures up images of horny-handed ranchers with
corks on their hats. A 'fair-dinkum Aussie' is indeed what the locals call
someone who embodies the nation's values. So, where did the phrase
originate? Alice Springs? Auckland? No, Lincolnshire in England. That claim
will take a little justifying, especially to readers down under, so here
goes.

Firstly, let's get out of the way the folk-etymological tale that the
phrase derives from the expression 'din gum', used by Chinese miners with
the meaning ‘real gold’. My Chinese is less than perfect and I can't
comment on whether or not 'real gold' is a correct translation, but I can
say that there's no evidence to link the phrase to China. There is,
however, a mining connection in the phrase's background.

'Dinkum' is a slang term that appears to have grown up with two meanings,
'work' and 'fair play'. These may in fact be drawn from one original
meaning, that is, 'honest toil'. The 'work' meaning of dinkum is found in
print in documents from both Australia and the UK in the late 19th century,
the earliest being in the classic Australian novel *Robbery under Arms*,
published by Thomas Alexander Browne, using the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood,
in 1888. It also appears in Sidney Addy's *Glossary of Words Used in the
Neighbourhood of Sheffield*, 1891:

‘I can stand plenty o' dincum.’ This word is used by colliers at Eckington.
[*Eckington is in East Derbyshire*]

The 'honesty' or 'fair play' meaning is what people now mean by the phrase.
The 'fair' was added to dinkum for emphasis, much in the same way that it
was added to 'square' to make 'fair and
square<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fair-and-square.html>'.
The 'fair play' meaning was known in England from at least 1882, as in this
example from a report of a political meeting in Lincoln, reported in
the*Nottingham
Evening Post*, February 1882. The paper reports the opinions of Richard
Hall, a local magistrate who was complaining about the unfair policies of
the Gladstone government, which he believed favoured the wealthy:

In all of these things he thought there should be fair 'dinkum' to all
classes of people.

'Fair dinkum' also appeared in Australia, in the Sydney newspaper *The
Bulletin*, in 1894.

'Fair dinkum' was used by the colliers of the UK's East Midlands from the
1880s and by Australians from a few years later. In the late 19th century,
in addition to the numerous criminals who were transported, many
mineworkers migrated from England to Australia, taking their working
language with them. Significantly as far as the derivation of this phrase
is concerned, the direction of migration was very much one way and few
migrants ever came back.
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