The Feel of a Word: cockatoo, galah, mopoke.

We observe the world around us and then we draw useful comparisons between animal behaviour and human stereotypes.  A child is a little monkey when they are mischievous.  An adult is a parrot or a birdbrain when they are noisy and stupid.

There was much to see for European settlers in Australia that was totally new to them so they had a fresh set of references to draw from.  The cockatoo was one of the more obvious birds to get their attention, and they observed that, as the flock was on the ground feeding, one or two would act as sentinels and set up a noisy screeching if there was any danger.  From this we got the cockatoo in two-up who was set to raise the alarm if the police came by.  There is an amusing story of a two-up game in Legends from Benson’s Valley by Frank Hardy, where the cockatoos were untroubled by the approach of a harrier (the old-fashioned term for a cross-country runner) because, after all, who could be more stupid than someone who chose to run around the countryside for fun.

‘There are some idiots in the world, the nitkeeper thought, as the harrier passed wearing glasses and a moustache and that tortured, stoic expression of the long-distance runner.

The harrier ran past the second line of cockatoos and right up to the two-up ring without arousing suspicion.’

The harrier turned out to be a policeman.

Cockatoo farmer was the term for a small landholder, folklore having it that the farmer scratched in the dirt for sustenance just like the bird.  However, the term came into use in the 1840s in relation to a settlement of small farmers at Port Fairy.  The idea seems to be that they were a viewed as a cluster, rather like the cluster of cockatoos on the ground.  Certainly cockatoo in relation to farming meant small holdings, poverty and makeshift arrangements.  A cockatoo fence was one thrown together from poles and branches.  A new selector in a story by Frank Dalby Davidson drew the comment that ‘there was nothing cockatoo about his workmanship.  His fences and sheds were quite up to the best bush standard’.

The galah, like the cockatoo, is noted for its noisy calls, and so gave rise to the galah session, the period on an outback radio network given over to private conversations, usually between women on different outback stations.  But there is no reason to link the galah with stupidity. Perhaps it is just that name gives the opportunity for an exaggerated pronunciation that can sound stupid.  Somewhere in the 1940s a galah became a stupid person and we acquired the expression you great galah!

The mopoke, otherwise known as the southern boobook, was instantly recognised by its mournful descending two-note night call.  The name mopoke tries to capture the sound, with variations like mope-hawk or more-pork as a further attempt at humour.  Some people found the bird’s repetitious, gloomy call extremely irritating so a person who drove you up the wall became a mopoke.  To add further insult you could call them a morepork.

The cruellest injustice has been done to the drongo, the Australian spangled drongo being a relative of the Madagascan bird which was called drongo in the Malagasy language.  The Australian bird is glossy black with iridescent green spots (its spangles).  Unfortunately a racehorse of the 1920s was called Drongo. It was thought to be very promising but couldn’t kick the habit of coming second. Eventually punters turned on it and drongo became another word for a stupid idiot.  Sad for the horse which has ended up with the reputation of being a complete failure.  True, it never won a race, but it came second in quite a few.  And sad for the spangled drongo but I’m sure the bird can look after itself.