Australian floods bring a sci-fi landscape of spiderwebs..

[MEBuckner]

@National Post

The Australian Museum’s entomology collections manager Graham Milledge said the spiders’ behavior was known as ballooning, and was typical after spiders are forced to flee from floods.

“They often do it as a way of dispersing and getting into a new area,” Milledge told the news.com.au website. “In an event like this, they are just trying to escape the floods.”

And, uh, just how far can these guys disperse that way? Like–across the Pacific Ocean?

[guizot]

Why is everyone so down on the spiders? They’re just trying to survive.

I’m curious, though, why floods in other places (besides Australia and Pakistan) don’t cause the same thing to happen. Are these simply a particular kind of spider that can’t swim?

[jabiru]

@Marley23

I’d be freaked out if I had to walk through those, but I have a more pressing question: there’s really a place in Australia called Wagga Wagga? Come on now.

Not to mention Kurri Kurri and Kangy Angy, among others.

[Jenaroph]

@mhendo

A lot of the funny-sounding names derive from the various aboriginal languages.

Tumbarumba, Wollongong, Parramatta, Gundagai, Brewarrina, Coonabarabran, Mullumbimby, etc.

Aboriginals named these things? I would have blamed Ents.

[MEBuckner]

Of course we have Walla Walla, Washington. I wonder if Walla Walla and Wagga Wagga are sister cities?

[Chefguy]

@MEBuckner

Of course we have Walla Walla, Washington. I wonder if Walla Walla and Wagga Wagga are sister cities?

I guess a knucklehead from there would be a Walla Walla Wally.

[GuanoLad]

I have been meaning to visit Suggan Buggan one day.

[armedmonkey]

Regarding seemingly strange Australian names and colloquialisms, allow me to translate a few from their unofficial national Anthem Walzing Matilda. I believe this will simplify things for my fellow Americans.

Once a jolly swagman[sup]1[/sup] camped by a billabong[sup]2[/sup]
Under the shade of a coolibah[sup]3[/sup] tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy[sup]4[/sup] boiled
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?”[sup]5[/sup]
Down come a jumbuck[sup]6[/sup] to drink at the water hole
Up jumped a swagman and grabbed him in glee
And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker bag[sup]7[/sup]
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me”

1. swagman: tramp
2. billabong: dry river bed
3. coolibah: apparently some kind of tree
4. billy: Ummm… a smaller dry river bed?
5. This line seems to indicate some kind of dancing, probably a waltz, possibly with someone named Matilda
6. jumbuck: Come on! That can’t possibly be a word!
7. tucker bag: Fuck this. “English-speaking” country, my ass.
   Apologies to America: The Book

[Baker]

Didn’t ANYBODY have the Captain Kangaroo record that explained the meaning of the words in “Waltzing Matilda”?

A “billy” is a teakettle.

“Waltzing Matilda” means “going on the road” as a tramp, or a hobo would.

The “jumbuck” is a sheep.

[Skywatcher]

Rising Floodwaters and the Spiders of Oz!

[C3]

My favorite Australian placename is Woolloomooloo. It’s fun to say!

[Lord_Mondegreen]

The repetition of the name indicates “lots of.” “Wagga” is one Aboriginal language’s word for “crow,” so Wagga Wagga essentially means the place of many crows.

tucker bag: Fuck this. “English-speaking” country, my ass

“Tucker” is food; once you know this, the meaning of tuckerbag is obvious. It should be noted that most of the unusual words in Waltzing Matilda are no longer in general use.

[appleciders]

@MEBuckner

Of course we have Walla Walla, Washington. I wonder if Walla Walla and Wagga Wagga are sister cities?

Lived in Walla Walla for four years- their sister city is Sasayama, Japan. There’s four "a"s in both, I guess.

@Chefguy

I guess a knucklehead from there would be a Walla Walla Wally.

Usually an “Onionhead.”

[alphaboi867]

@mhendo

A lot of the funny-sounding names derive from the various aboriginal languages.

Tumbarumba, Wollongong, Parramatta, Gundagai, Brewarrina, Coonabarabran, Mullumbimby, etc.

Then there’s the nation’s capital, Canberra, which can either mean meeting place or women’s breasts depending on the dialect.

[mhendo]

@alphaboi867

Then there’s the nation’s capital, Canberra, which can either mean meeting place or women’s breasts depending on the dialect.

I think a woman’s breasts are a perfectly good meeting place.

[Senegoid]

@A Monkey With a Gun

Once a jolly swagman[sup]1[/sup] camped by a billabong[sup]2[/sup]
.
.
.
2) billabong: dry river bed

Can’t be a dry river bed. (I learned it as “water hole”). If you’ll remember the rest of the song, the song ends with the swagman drowning in it.

ETA: And furthermore… What I really wanted to mention in this post… Talking about all those spiders… (The OP was about spiders, right?)… and getting all squicked out about them…
Didnt-ja all read in those articles that those spiders are eating bazillions of mosquitos?
Spiders are our friends!

[mhendo]

@Senegoid

Can’t be a dry river bed. (I learned it as “water hole”). If you’ll remember the rest of the song, the song ends with the swagman drowning in it.

It was originally, i believe, meant to refer to a body of water left by, or separate from, a mainly-dry riverbed. So, when the river stops running in the dry season, the pools that form are billabongs. Similarly, it referred to pool cut off from the main watercourse by changes in the river, what geographers refer to as an “oxbow” lake.

[madrabbitwoman]

I have lived in Grong Grong as well as Wagga Wagga. I am sincerely grateful that I no longer live in Wagga.
However I am not sure I like where I live* at the moment either. Due to the rainfall I have a plague of slugs. I fact one just dropped on my foot -arrggghh icky icky icky.
I live in place called Deniliquin. The town was named after a local Aborigine famed for his wrestling prowess: Denilakoon :smack: and for those who don’t know koon sounds a a lot like coon which is on par with nigger.

[Cicero]

Things are crook in Tullarook.

I don’t think Parramatta is Aboriginal. I think it is a strange dialect which means “Place where Lebanese Drug Dealers Thrive”.

And those spiders- well they are in training to swim to the Northern Hemisphere…

[jabiru]

@alphaboi867

Then there’s the nation’s capital, Canberra, which can either mean meeting place or women’s breasts depending on the dialect.

I thought it meant ‘a good sheep run, gone to waste.’