G'day,

I presume that our GEST, DAZ is refering to some specific "Aussie Online Dictionary:, for which he gives no references. The Mudcat's Aussie Glossary (see "Quick Links" above) doesn't have a reference to the 1950s, onward, Australian sense of "Bodgie" because it hasn't come up in a song (yet). It does have:

"bodgy | Of inferior quality | This is from earlier word 'bodger' - self-employed woodworker".

The obscure note is mine ... I must have been in one of my more cranky moods about the way business (and other authority) perverts the language to suit its own profit. Specifically, "Bodgers" were piece-work tradesman to industries such as Windsor chair-making. They took a lease on a portion of beech forest / cut selected trees / rough cut to length / split to rough size / left to slightly dry / rough shaped (using a "springy sapling" powered lathe / re-stacked and dried / lathed down to final dimensions for all the individual parts of the chair.

Having done this, they delivered only the final wooden parts - all with grain perfectly down the axis of the turned piece ... and left all the swarth in the forest to feed the next crop of trees.

The factories switched to sawmill timber ... all blanks for turning had grain more or less off line, with a loss of strength ... but they had to promote the new, "modern" way - and so they had to use the old terms as a disparaging reference ... with no relation to its real quality.

OK - Sorry about the rant ... but it demonstrates the way meanings of words are manipulated.

Regards,

Bob