Dinkum – (Australian and New Zealand) genuine, authentic, guileless.

As in, He was a fair dinkum bloke with no pretensions.  I’ve always liked this word, another one we didn’t use back home in Africa.  According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of this word was in 1905, origin unknown. Our word for genuine was pukka, (do not pronounce puke-a), no doubt from our colonial relationship to India. Origin, Hindi and Urdu and means cooked, ripe, solid, from Sanskrit pakva. Makes sense?

Merriam-Webster has pukka as a synonym for dinkum. Now maybe pukka can be wiggled into dinkum, but I don’t think so. The latter is more along the lines of bona fide, certifiable, as in Pukka quarters with a swarm of servants. Dinkum is well, more personal.

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