We of the Never Never

A-Z of Life as I Know it........'N'......."Never Never"

The first thing that springs to my mind is the old reference to 'we of the never never' and what exactly does that mean anyway, I don't know. Perhaps it's talking about us Aussies, the real Aussies of old, cause our land has been described in many derogatory terms from the very early days of settlement. So 'never never' is probably one of the better descriptions of Australia's outback, 'never never country' or 'never never land', oh yes it's as clear a mud now!

No wonder newcomers to Australia don't understand us. The 'Never Never' is clearly not describing what it actually is which according to the dictionary is 'the far interior of Australia' and even that sounds like a term you'd be more likely to hear in the Foreign Correspondents Club. I'm even thinking maybe in the days of the Raj, describing the hot, dusty and uninhabitable lands that are central India!

The 'never never' has been described as the remote outback which sounds better than the 'far interior' but again, what is that saying, I mean if you said to someone why don't you head west and check out the 'never never', they'd look at you as if you had two heads. They'd obviously have no clue whatsoever.

Then again, how likely are you to even hear someone use that term, perhaps you'd already be in the outback if you heard someone talking about 'the never never'. I just did a dictionary search online and it doesn't even come up, only in a good old Aussie Dictionary would you be likely to find reference to the term at all.

Now I'm feeling a bit sad about that, I've never used the term and I just stumbled upon it but in some warped way it does remind me of my childhood. I might have heard my grandparents using the term. But wait, I don't think so cause my grandfather hailed from Danville Virginia in the good old U.S.of A. The only thing that I recall him saying was 'God Daaaaaaaaamn' in that southern drawl of his so 'never never' must have imprinted on my mind from some other time, but when?

Another search online and I've found one reference...now it's a meaning for 'buying a car on hire purchase' buying it on the never never! I know what that means but would I be able to describe that to someone from Japan or Korea for instance?

Just as well us Aussies have evolved over the years and become a little more cultured in our evolution. I'm sure you'll hear some funny old terms like that one if you head way out west and in fact you'd probably hear some of 'em if you spend enough time in far north Queensland. But our language must be very hard to understand for the beginner with our strange little colloquialisms that we take so much for granted.


Stone the crows, down the frog and toad, lets have a captain cook, blah blah blah ...actually it's probably only Alf on Home and Away that ever uses the term 'stone the crows' and I haven't heard 'frog and toad' since I was a teenager and as for the others well, they're just 'dropping like flies' anyway.