The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40474 Message #3530358
Posted By: Bob Bolton
25-Jun-13 - 07:00 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Click Go the Shears
Subject: RE: Origins: Click Go the Shears
G'day Allan C,
As Sandra has already noted, the Germanic-derived "crutch" is much more common in Australian usage than the French-derived "crotch (from 'croche' = "hook"). My desktop Oxford Concise Australian Dictionary has listings for the Australian / (mainly) sheep industry terms:
Crutch: Noun - Hindquarters of a sheep / verb: 'clip wool from about the tail of a sheep to prevent fouling, and esp. to prevent blowfly strike. / noun: Crutcher ...
Crutchings: Noun - Wool clipped from the hindquarters of a sheep.
There were a number of large migrations of Germanic people ... mainly getting away from Bismarck's attempts to :unify" them ... during the 19th century. I believe quite a lot of their rural usages quietly slipped into the Australian variety of the "English" language.