Take the next left and the next, and another left after that. This week we’re doing blockies: a single circuit of a vehicle around a street block, usually doing only left hand turns.
As one contributor to the Australian Word Map put it, to do a blockie means, ‘to go round the block very fast in a usually noisy car, often done by young men on a Saturday night.’
Tasmanians and Victorians are more likely to drive a blockie, while Queenslanders are more likely to do a lappy. In Western Australia a blockie is known as a bog lap.
Being a nation of car lovers means that Australians have created a plethora of car and driving related slang. We picked up some of our favourites from the Macquarie database. Do you drive a banger? A banger is a beat-up old car. Can you bag it, as in, can you drive your banger fast?
In contrast to a banger, a beast is a great big hulking car. Waiting at the front of the traffic queue in your beast? A burn-off is to drive off at speed from the traffic lights in order to beat someone else and thereby show how fab you are because you’ve got a fast car.
If you’re interested in other driving terms, check out our blogs on grey nomads and doof doof cars.
Each week, we have a look at a slang word from Australian English. You can see other Aussie Word of the Week posts from the Macquarie Dictionary here.
