Bogan

Melbourne street art of a stereotypical male bogan. He is depicted as a repulsive character with a cigarette in his mouth, a tomato sauce-covered meat pie in one hand and a stubby of Melbourne Bitter in the other. On his arm is a tattoo of bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly.

Bogan (/ˈbɡən/ BOHG-ən[1]) is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating.[2] The prevalence of the term bogan has also been associated with changing social attitudes towards social class in Australia.

Since the 1980s, the bogan has become a very well-recognised subculture, often as an example of bad taste.[3][4] It has antecedents in the Australian larrikin and ocker, and various localised names exist that describe the same or very similar people to the bogan.[5]

  1. ^ "bogan noun – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com". www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  2. ^ Lauder, Simon (12 April 2008). "Bogan Pl residents lobby for name change". ABC. Retrieved 12 April 2008.>
  3. ^ Kay Frances Bartolo. "'Bogan' Polite or not? Cultural implications of a term in Australian slang" (PDF). Griffith University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
  4. ^ Melenie Parkes (20 November 2014). "Bogan Hunters: A Field Guide". Yahoo! NZ. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  5. ^ Moore, Bruce: Of Boondies, Belgium Sausages and Boguns, (archive of dead link Archived 12 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine) Ozwords (Australian National University), November 1998.