Macquarie Dictionary Blog

Dullaboo yullaboo spullabeak alibi? (Do you speak alibi?)

Jun 17, 2019

Aussie Word of the Week

Crypto languages are something of a passion of ours. You have arpie-darpie, aygo-paygo, obo language, pig Latin and rechtub kelat (a secret language of butchers!) to name a few.

But today, we're going to talk about one used by schoolchildren called alibi. In this particular language, normal words are modified by adding into each syllable the sounds 'ullab'; thus hug becomes hullabug and 'You are a pig' becomes 'Yullaboo ullabar ullaba pullabig'.

Is this the language you favoured as a child? Or was it something more unusual like one of our editors who speaks bollagosh? We'd love to know in the comments below.

Each week, we have a look at a slang word from Australian English. You can see other Aussie Word of the Week posts from the Macquarie Dictionary here.