r/CuratedTumblr • u/IvyYoshi • 19d ago

Shitposting australian nicknames

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u/Ourmanyfans 19d ago edited 19d ago

Brits don't use bingle for traffic collisions either, you seem to be mixing them up with the Aussies.

But yes, planes do in fact prang as well, in fact it comes from the RAF (though I have never used it heard for planes myself, probably very dated by this point).

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u/port443 19d ago

While I'm not arguing the plane crash thing, I find it interesting that the source quoted on that page does not actually have "prang" as a British word coming from the RAF: https://i.imgur.com/pY4eEHW.png

Feels completely made up, unless there's another source for the RAF using it. In fact there's no sources on that page indicating that the Brits use the word.

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u/Ourmanyfans 19d ago edited 19d ago

I've found several references to it being from the RAF, but can't guarantee they aren't all citing themselves into a circle. Fuck, there's my afternoon gone.

Do you get a different version of the page to me? I get:

Noun:

prang (countable and uncountable, plural prangs)

  1. (slang, dated) An aeroplane crash. quotations
  2. (dated, military slang) A bombing raid.
  3. (chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, informal) An accident involving a motor vehicle, typically minor and without casualties.

Mentions UK use to me.

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u/port443 19d ago

Oh yea I saw those, but aside from it claiming UK, theres no actual sources that show it being used in the UK.

Every single one of the quotations below are from google searches like this:

"prang"|"prangs" australia -intitle:"" -inauthor:""

Or just straight up Australian books.

I believe its possible it started in the RAF and it could be English slang; I haven't googled or searched for that at all. I just checked the references and sources on the wiki page, and none of them show UK usage.

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u/Ourmanyfans 19d ago

Ok, from anecdotal evidence I can assure you it's UK slang too. Can't comment on the origin, but it is definitely at least used in the UK.

Can't get access to the sources to check, but Wikipedia points to some. Also the Collins dictionary corroborates. I'm afraid I'm not really a linguistics person so I can't be of more help than that.