Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 June 23

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June 23

Is "stonking" commonly used in Australian English?

As in the sentence "A Suitable Boy is a stonking big book." I'm aware it's common in BrE, but what about AusE? Lantzy : Lantzy 23:49, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I can't comment on frequency of use, but it is in the Australian Oxford Dictionary. "adjective (colloq.) used to emphasise something remarkable or exciting". DuncanHill (talk) 00:02, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Not in a long time, and never of a book. "Stonking great hole" sounds authentic. Doug butler (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

However, in a little-known film sequel, Library of the Sierra Madre, Gold Hat does say, "Books? We don't need to return no stonking books!" Clarityfiend (talk) 06:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Just to make sure, that's the Sierra Madre of Australia, no, with Bruce Brown in his memorable role as Gold Hat?  --Lambiam 13:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The GloWbE corpus shows the following counts for "stonking": GB 129, AU 17, IE 16, US 12, NZ 10, CA 0, all the rest 14. --ColinFine (talk) 20:23, 24 June 2021 (UTC)