Baagandji ˈba:gʌndʒi: noun
Aboriginal people from the border region of New South Wales and South Australia. Despite the spelling of their ancestral name, they are not of Dutch origin.
Babism ˈba:bɪzəm noun
Religion. Founded 1844, offshoot of Islam, by the Persian Mirza Ali Muhammad (Báb), a merchant-turned-prophet. It holds Muhammad was not the last, and that a new prophet or messenger of God will come.
Within 20 years of the Báb's death (in 1850) 25 people claimed to be the Promised One. Twenty seven including Yr Lex and his wife, if it so please the reader.
barbie ˈba:bi: noun
Aust. colloq for barbecue
Lexinote: Although urLex, not too widely travelled, stands uncertain what this word evokes in the northern climes, rest assured in the Land of the Southern Cross it means one thing only - a barbecue.
There is little truth to the rumour that our outdoor hotplates are heated by the flames of burning bimbo dolls, though in some quarters the device is fuelled by combusting empty cola bottles and similar whatnots retrieved from neighbour's recycle bins, the cost of briquettes and firewood being what it is.
It should also be noted by our US compatriots that probably no-one in Australia has seen a shrimp anywhere but under glass in the local supermarket, thenceforth on their summer salad - and virtually never carbonising on a grill, that being the near exclusive domain of low-grade sausages and extra-tough cuts of chuck steak, both cooked to inedibility.
UrLex feels dutybound to add that while local fisheries are farmed for shrimp, they become prawns when retailed and eaten.
bogan ˈboʊgən noun Aust. & NZ colloq.
A derogatory term for a person judged socially inferior in terms of behaviour and appearance. An uncultured and unsophisticated person.
Lexinote: It will assist international readers if they visualise Little Britain's character Vicki Pollard in an Australian context.
Researchers document two stages of Australian bogan:
1. Young couple on the lowest socio-economic scale, poorly educated, living in an outer metropolitan suburb, who don't know they are bogans and have never heard the term.
2. Male, late 20s or 30s, still bedded in the mindset of 1., now louder and cruder and, if aware he's a bogan, proud of the fact. Women by this stage have usually matured.
While there is no possible consensus on bogan characteristics, there is universal agreement on one thing: we know one when we see one.
Bowser baw-zu(r) noun
Aircraft fuelling aside, Down Under it is the petrol pump at a 'servo' (gas
station).
To bowse, however, is not to pump gas but to get hammered, to
booze.