The editor of Meanjin, Jim Davidson, adds a footnote: 'acca (slightly derogatory) 1, noun An academic rather than an intellectual, particularly adept at manipulating trendiologies, usually with full scholarly apparatus. The abbreviation first appears in Meanjin (Melbourne, 1977), where Canberra historian Ken Inglis has an article titled 'Accas and Ockers: Australia's New Dictionaries'. We trust that Edmund Weiner and John Simpson did not take a citation, since the Australian abbreviation of academic is not acco but acca (sometimes spelt acker). I hoped, after I left, they would enter it on one of their little slips and add it to their gigantic compost heap - a candidate for admission to the next edition. I asked if they were familiar with the Oz usage 'acco', meaning 'academic'.

But not all -o words were Australian, said Simpson : eg 'aggro' and 'cheapo'. Australians used the -o suffix a lot, he reflected. Michael Davie in 'Going from A to Z forever' (an article on the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary), Age, Saturday Extra, 1 April 1989, writes of his visit to the dictionary section of Oxford University Press:īefore I left, Weiner said he remembered how baffled he had been the first time he heard an Australian talk about the 'arvo'.

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