I stand corrected. NSW and Queensland, then.
Actually I think if you head up into Qld, the more common term you’ll find is togs. 
I think you’ll hear “togs” in Sydney, as well - I’m familiar with it, and I’ve never been to Queensland. A lot of these terms are heard in different places, people move about. I’m familiar with cossie, togs, swimmers and bathers and I’ve used all of them (although bathers is the one I learnt as a kid and the one that springs to mind-and not just “bathers” but “a pair of bathers” which is just silly). I feel sorry for anybody trying to understand Australian vernacular, we can’t even flummox them with just one term for something
A useful toolso Leo can plan his next holiday.
He can go from enjoying scallops in his swimmers, then south to have a potato fritter in his bathers before a trip across the Nullarbor to dine on a luxurious potato cake in his bathers. They all go beautifully paired with devon, polony or Empire sausage.
yummmmmmmmm
can I just say that devon isn’t the same thing as polony, it’s not just the word that is different, it isn’t the same product. Sort of similar, but not really the same thing.
Yes, of course you can. Its an important fact that should be better known than it is. And I freely admit complete ignorance about Empire sausage, except that it was the processed meat version of Freedom Fries a 100 years ago.
yup, never heard of it.
Add in speedos, budgie smugglers and boardies.
According to this study [see 2nd graphic] the terminology is much more regionally consistent than I would have thought … I grew up on the NSW/Vic border and we wore togs. [shrug]
During the recent mining boom the entire population of Western Australia could have been described as cashed up bogans (Gruen Transfer - The Pitch).
From that, it looks like Victorians say bathers, but sisu told us it’s swimmers over there…
Victorian here, togs and bathers rule. Never heard swimmers used except by out-of-state visitors.
And yet, one of our most popular and iconic local films, The Castle manages to glorify an archetypal bogan family turning them from people to be derided into sympathetic characters.
Good luck, foreigners, it’s a lucky dip what word(s) you will encounter.
Devon is (or at least was - I haven’t been there recently) known as fritz in South Australia.
But the Kerrigans are just great, sympathetic characters. How’s the serenity?
yep Vic it is devon, I remember going to Robe SA on holidays as a kid and all I wanted was some fritz and dead horse sambos before I hit the beach in my budgie smugglers and thongs! Mum always made me slip, slop and slap of course.
When I first heard port for bag I was a bit amused.
OH I don’t get kangaroos but have had a koala wander across my front yard a few times. Every morning I am woken by a chorus of cockatoos and galahs. We get a lot of kangaroos at our holiday house but that is the bush.
Bogan has been corrupted, I grew up int he suburbs and drove a V8 Torana, wore a flannie, listened to AC/DC and had a nice mullet, this is what a bogan once meant a working to middle class person but today it has morphed into something much worse and is considered an insult.
But at no point in the film are they referred to as, nor do they identify as, “bogans”. To call someone a bogan is to impute lack of taste or culture, and the Macquarie Dictionary notes that it’s “mildly derogatory”. Whereas the point about the Kerrigan family in The Castle is not so much that they lack culture or taste as that they are incredibly decent and loving people. “Bogan” wouldn’t point to this.
Sure, but they do share many characteristics that would identify them as bogans, despite their good nature.
And most of us have some degree of bogan whether we admit it or not. One can be ‘a bit of a bogan’ sometimes, or we can be ‘full-on bogans’. It’s really just a matter of degree.
#Wearing ugg boots to the supermarket on a cold morning? Bit of a bogan.
#Turning up to a Ban the Mosque picket wearing uggs and hurling abuse at worshippers? A fucking full-on bogan.
Seems that this thread long ago drifted away from the original question to a discussion of Australian slang. Off to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
How dare you rename this thread. It’s not SLANG, it’s regional language differences.
Now go stick yer’ head down the dunny, and I hope an emu kicks it down when yer’ noggin’ is thrust deep in the porcelain throne.
True. I always associated a bogan as ‘A guy with a two-car garage, with both cars parked in the street’.