The footy season has been with us for a month now and I’m pleased to say that Collingwood – the Mighty Maggies, the Pies, the Woods, the Woodsmen – have made a very promising start to the season. So, I sat down to watch the boys in action last night against the Brisbane Lions. And they smashed them. Double the score.

It was a good opportunity to do some linguistic research as well as to bask in the glow of victory. Brisbane had a bit of the play in the second quarter but, unlike Collingwood whose elite midfield wee linking up through seamless chains of hand and footpassing that opened up the forward line to precision leading and marking, they struggled to kick goals. But late in the quarter as the ball spilled around the pack at the top of their goal square, it was fumbled out to a Lion who mongrelled (an interesting Australian verb, incidentally) a mis-timed little push through the big sticks.

Commentator Leigh Matthews remarked that it was a “scungy” goal. He said this with obvious admiration. Lethal Leigh’s career was marked by every sort of goal and he wasn’t beyond scunging a few. In fact, now that I think of it, he’s the only commentator I can recall using the word so maybe it’s his invention, part of his idiolect. But it comes out of the common hoard of meanings we all share. Before I look to a dictionary, I’ll say that “scunge comes out of a consonantal affinity with a whole swathe of hard scrabble words that begin with the sk/sc consonant pair. Scrabble, scrag, scrape, scrap, scam, scratch, scum, skive, scrounge. And perhaps less likely although possibly from assonance with words like dung, scum, mongrel, lunge.

Now to the dictionaries. It’s not a Leigh Matthews invention but he is at least doing his best to keep it alive and it is a pretty handy word. It is widely recorded as a slang word of Australian and New Zealand origin meaning dirty and disagreeable, sordid, disgusting, in disarray, and so on. There is a variant usage of “cungy” which I’ve never heard so perhaps there is also something of a connection to the tabooest four-letter word in the English language. This is a family blog so I can’t say it but I’m sure you know what I mean. The etymology of “scungy” is uncertain so my theory of formation through affinities of consonance and assonance still has possibilities.

You might be an English Language student but not a football fan. That’s OK. My point is that to be a researcher in language is pretty easy. You don’t need a laboratory or a library or an elaborate research program. Language is everywhere. Abundantly everywhere. All you need are your eyes and ears, an alert mind and a notebook to jot down interesting examples of language that you come across. Language is always changing and the professional linguists and scholars are never and can never be across it all. There’s just so much of it out there. If examiners can see that you are not just reproducing the standard textbook examples but are actively and independently researching in the language domains which you inhabit, they will be impressed.

So, start researching now. Think about the odd phrases and words you hear and see. Record them in your journal. Speculate on their usage and origin. Use the sub-systems to analyse them. Be alert to language.

Who knows? Maybe you can scunge a couple of extra marks.

And I’m hoping that Collingwood can scrape, scrabble, scrap, and scrounge enough to scunge the winning goal at this year’s Grand Final.

SCUNGY!!!!

That would make a nice headline.