The soldiers themselves were not called Diggers until well into the war, the name first entering common use around 1917, with the first recorded use in something other than the traditional goldmining sense occurring in 1916.
The War Precautions Act forbade the use of "ANZAC" in the name of any private residence, boat, vehicle, or charitable institution, on penalty of a £100 fine or six months in prison.
[2] As well as gaining slang versions of many French words from the areas in which the soldiers fought, such as "naipoo" for "no way" (taken from the French "il n'y a plus"), "tray bon" (from "très bon", and from which other Digger slang words such as "bonsterina" and "bontosher" were in turn derived), "plonk" (from "vin blanc") for cheap wine, and "cushy" for "easy"; the soldiers also incorporated Arabic words learned at their training grounds in Egypt, such as "saieeda" for "goodbye" and "imshi" for "go", and, most notably "bint" for a woman (who were also called "tabbies").
One slang phrase, going "to the top of the Wazir" derives its meaning, of doing something to excess, from a troop riot in the red light district Cairo on Good Friday 1915, over the prices being charged by prostitutes and the rumour that they were intentionally infecting the men with sexually transmitted diseases.
These "retreads" were fit enough to return to action and continued the use of terms such as "bint", "backsheesh" for money, "shoofti" for a look around (borrowed via British slang from Arabic), and "guts" for news and information.
Other Digger slang expressions involving complaint and error were "whinge", "balls-up", and "upter" (a contraction of "up to shit").
Food was called "afterbirth", a cook was a "bait layer", a quartermaster a "q bastard", and a sergeant's mess a "snake pit".
Others include "snarlers", who were soldiers from the Middle East who were "SNLR" ("Services No Longer Required") and sent home on "three P boats" (troopships that contained "pox, prisoners, and provosts").
[2] Australia's involvement in numerous United Nations peacekeeping operations, regional stabilisation operations such as Bougainville and Solomon Islands, as well as East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, have created new opportunities for Diggers to work and interact closely with soldiers and civilians from other nations.
A Digger who did not patrol outside of the wire was a "Fobbit", derived from the NATO acronym FOB (Forward Operating Base).
"Jack" is most commonly used as an adjective for a person or behaviour that places the individual performing the action's interests ahead of those of the team.
Due to the institutionalised nature of military weapons training in Australia, a number of metaphors associated with rifle ranges were applied to operations.
[citation needed] The small metal spoon found in the Australian Defence Force's 24-hour combat ration pack, called a Field Ration Eating Device, was abbreviated to "FRED" (said to stand for Fucking Ridiculous Eating Device).
Some examples of this were "zap", "waste" or "turn into pink mist", all originally taken from U.S. military slang, meaning "to kill".
Similar influence of Digger stereotyping on mainstream vocabulary has been the retention of "returned-servicemen" or "vets" for what in many other countries are called veterans.
The latter name became more common in the 1980s with the creation of the Department of Veterans Affairs by the federal government, but "returned-servicemen" still remains in popular usage through the Returned Servicemen League clubs.