G'day dianavan, Phillipa et al,

dianavan states:
" I had never heard the word 'craic' used to describe lively conversation until I was in Ireland ... Crack has many other English meanings but I have never heard it used to describe converstion."

I'm refreshing this topic because, in another thread, I said I was chasing a tune set to Australian poet Banjo Paterson's poem Santa Claus in the Bush, which begins:

It chanced out back at the Christmas time,
When the wheat was ripe and tall,
A stranger rode to the farmer's gate --
A sturdy man and a small.

"Rin doon, rin doon, my little son Jack,
And bid the stranger stay;
And we'll hae a crack for Auld Lang Syne,
For the morn is Christmas Day."

............................

I have this poem in the 1921 book The Collected Works of A B Paterson ... a combination of his 1895, 1902 and 1917 published collections, so the very latest Paterson could have written that line is 1917 ... and his use in a humorous poem, set in the Australian bush, must mean he expected the expression to be immediately recognised (in this case, as a good Scots term) by the average Australian.

Whatever the history of the transliteration as craic ... this indicates that Australians of a century back recognised crack as a familiar term for a Scot's pleasurable yarning ... 'for old times' sake'.

Regards,

Bob