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Gary Simes

Gary Simes was a Sydney lexicographer.

Gary Simes reviews ‘Diggerspeak: The language of Australians at war’ by Amanda Laugesen

June-July 2006, no. 282 01 June 2006
While I was reading this book, news came that Peter Casserly, the last surviving digger who fought on the Western Front in World War I, had died, aged 107. Like Marcel Caux, who died in 2004, aged 105, Casserly always repudiated the Australian glorification of Gallipoli, refusing to participate in Anzac Day marches, join the RSL or even to talk about his wartime experiences. Yet after eighty-seven ... (read more)

Gary Simes reviews 'Convict Words: Language in early colonial Australia' by Amanda Laugesen

April 2003, no. 250 01 April 2003
Amanda Laugesen’s Convict Words is a dictionary of the characteristic or salient words of early colonial discourse, the lexis of the convict system and transportation, which survived until 1840 in New South Wales, 1852 in Van Diemen’s Land, and 1868 in Western Australia. It is not immediately clear what sort of readership is envisaged for the book. It would not occur to many people interested ... (read more)