Hi all,

I've have been trying to satisfy an idle curiosity about the Oz term "tinny", or "tinny-arsed" or "tin-arsed" which means "lucky". (People tend to say it about my hubby when he repeatedly wins things in raffles etc, although he hasn't done it so much lately. It seems to go in cycles.)

I can't for the life of me figure out a logical explanation of how the term came about and where it came from or what it signifies. I've looked up "the Bible", i.e. the Macquarie Dictionary (my version is 1982) and all it gives is the definition "lucky" but no origins.

Please, dear Mudcatters, shed some light on this puzzle for me, or even just toss around some ideas of where it might have originated. Think laterally!

A thought I have had is that it might relate to mining, striking it lucky, mining tin. So lucky that you just have to sit down and you find yourself sitting on the mother lode?

Who knows? Maybe there isn't an explanation. But here is the best place I know of to ask the question.

Helen