Talk:donga

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You took out the reference to a slang term for condoms in Australia. It was, in the '70s. It would be where the term came from for the dwellings. Dongas are small and uncomfortable, like a condom.
 * All you have to do is provide evidence. Maybe a link to such a usage in an Australian book or newspaper. SemperBlotto 10:54, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

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It could be a retrospectively applied acronym but I have heard that donga stands for demountable over night group accommodation. No reference unfortunately.
 * Never trust etymologies that claim something is an acronym. It’s made up 99.99999999% of the time. — Ungoliant (Falai) 23:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Also never trust statistics that claim 99 followed by any number of nines after a decimal point. They are made up 100% of the time.
 * As for acronyms / backronyms it's certainly true that there's a lot of made up folk etymologies for old words. In English acronyms go back only far as words like "radar" and "scuba". But with modern words it's not so unusual. Now I'm Australian and middle aged and well read and well travelled but I only came across this word for the first time a few minutes ago. I have no idea how old it is. If it's not very old the acronym story may be true, especially since it's not a funny acronym at all. I'll try to look it up in some Australian dictionaries. &mdash; hippietrail (talk) 19:55, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It turns out the Australian National Dictionary Centre was asking the public for help with this word exactly eighteen years ago. They're pondering whether the Australian sense comes from the African sense or from a word Papua New Guinea meaning "house" and has earliest citations going back to 1900 and 1941: &mdash; hippietrail (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * When I was a little kid in NSW I was told the buildings are named that because of the sound they make when hit, and given an immediate demonstration: "DONG!" Also, the newsletter link seems to have moved to 58.96.54.118 10:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

RFC discussion: August 2010–March 2011
Where do I start? The entry's a bloody mess. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 00:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Better? —Ruakh TALK 19:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It appears to be good now. - -sche 02:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)