went walkabout

[Geoff Nathan]

At the risk of just saying 'me too', I, too, have known the phrase for many years, and have always known it was Aussie slang, perhaps related to Aboriginal culture where there's a rite of passage that involves going on a long journey into the Outback (reaching back into my memories here...)

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "John Baker" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:

> From: "John Baker" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 3:07:36 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: went walkabout
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: went walkabout
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>         It's a pretty well-known term - I'm familiar with it, and
> I've
> never been to Australia.  Bierbauer could have picked it up from a
> movie
> or novel.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf
> Of Victor
> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:56 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: went walkabout
>
> An expression that looks rather odd to me:
>
>  >>"The worry is that this is going to come back as the governor who
> _went walkabout_," says Bierbauer at University of South Carolina.
> http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/06/24/sanford-returns-home-t
> o-impeachment-rumblings/
>
>
> The problem is not the expression itself, but finding it in South
> Carolina.
>
> TheFreeDictionary lists it as Australian (as do other sources), with
> two
> of the possible meaning for "to go walkabout" being "to be lost or
> misplaced" and "to lose one's concentration", both likely applicable
> here.
>
> Of the first 30600 raw ghits, most of the front 30 refer to the same
> Google blog post ("Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave."). The
> only
> exception (aside from nonsense references) is this one.
>
>  >>Seal that went walkabout [story title]
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119081.800-seal-that-went-walkab
> out.html
>
> The next non-Google-blog reference is also from the New Scientist:
> "How
> Earth's poles went walkabout".
>
> Of the next 60, most still refer to the same Google blog post, but
> there
> is a sprinkling of others--most appear to be UK.
>
> One slang dictionary lists "walkabout" as "an tour on foot by an
> important person (such as a visiting member of the royal family,
> politician or celebrity)". That's UK usage and does not apply here
> either.
>
> Most of the ghits for "go walkabout" (43600 raw) appear to be
> Australian
> (although some Google suggestions might be referring to Africa). Of
> the
> 47700 raw ghits for "gone walkabout" most also appear to be
> Australian
> references. The only exception that I thought I found:
>
>  >>Gone Walkabout: A Jesuit makes his way down
> under.http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=1172
> 3
>
> So this one is, again, Australian.
>
> The only thing left to do is to look up Charles Bierbauer ("dean of
> the
> University of South Carolina's communication department and a former
> political reporter"). Bierbauer was a 20-year correspondent for CNN,
> covering the span from Reagan to Clinton, but he was born in
> Allentown,
> PA. There seems to be no reason why he would have picked up
> Australian
> slang.
>
> So far, this remains a mystery to me. Any comments?
>
> VS-)
>
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