From ABC Classic FM Breakfast - Word of the Day: Monday 21 July 2003

Triantiwontygong

Kel Richards writes

A triantiwontygong is a type of Bunyip peculiar to the Central Highlands of Victoria. During the Second World War (in the early 1940s, in fact) city children were being evacuated from Melbourne to the bush to escape any possible enemy bombing. And the bush kids used this triantiwontygong to scare, or embarrass or confuse the city kids. As in: "Did you see that?" he said in a hushed whisper while pointing to the scrubby bush they were passing through on their way to school. "No don't look now. It's a triantywontygong."
Interestingly there was an older slang word triantelope used for hairy spiders (such as huntsmen). The earliest citation for triantelope is from 1845.
Then in 1921 C J Dennis published A Book for Kids in which he combined both words (triantiwontygong and triantelope) to create his own mythical creature which he called "The Triantiwontigongolope."
It is something like a beetle, and a little like a bee,
But nothing like a wooly grub that climbs upon a tree.
Its name is quite a hard one, but you'll learn it soon, I hope.
So try: Triantiwontigongolope.
So wrote C J Dennis – giving us three creatures with impossibly similar names.