What’s a Rum’un? How this new AFL mascot got its name

We say fizzy; they say cordial. We say wombat; they say badger. Their yaffler is our loudmouth, and tisher a local nickname for DIY cigarette paper. Meanwhile, a humdinger, or anything exceptional, is a ringtail roarer.

Allegedly, as nailing words to postcodes is a foolhardy business, not every Victorian calls that deep-fried treat a potato cake. But most do, just as many older Tasmanians won’t be thrown by yaffle, since the British dialect for yap has island history. In the same way, badger – their historic slang for wombat – is preserved in any bush hut dubbed a badger box.

Meet Rum’un, the Tasmania Devils’ new club mascot.Credit: AAPIMAGE

Hydro is another Taswegian hangover, the pharaoh-like projects of postwar premiers sustained in the local lexicon via hydro workers, hydro poles, plus hydro bills each quarter. Linguistically, each state differs, whether those regionalisms arise from the roots of the “settlement community”, or come courtesy of government jargon, such as Port Macquarie’s kindy compared to Devonport’s prep.

Staying with childhood, let’s meet a two-metre monster, a razor-fanged hybrid with bottle-green fur and shoulder tat, pigs’ ears and kneepads, claws and mange and yellow flashes. Tuck a Sherrin under the animal’s forelimb and you’re looking at Rum’un, the new Tasmanian mascot on the AFL roster.

Most journos were flummoxed. Visually, they loved the monster. Its jaws could snarl, and its party trick was pooping mini footies. Overall, the beast was bad-arse, designed by puppeteer Bryony Anderson, but what did Rum’un mean? Did Bundaberg Distillery play a hand? Was there a missing sidekick called Coke? Or Raisin? Two years from fielding teams, the Tassie franchise was already playing mind games.

Brendon Gale, the club’s CEO, dropped hints at the launch: “The creation of Rum’un reflects our club – uniquely Tasmanian, handcrafted and created with grit and determination representing our whole island. Rum’un is also a little bit cheeky. These characteristics are all true to the Tasmania Football Club, a club that represents our whole state and that does things our way.”

Though the question remained: what’s with rum’un? The gist is oddness. Rather than hydroelectricity, think eccentricity. Distinct from the liquor, this second rum derives from the Romany language, where rom means man, or husband. Add a dram of canting slang, the coded talk among criminals from the 1700s, and rum’un denoted mischief-maker, a rabble-rouser, a character. We hear the transition echoed in the mainland’s wrong’un, just as rum is an antique synonym of strange.

Weird all right, thought the press corps, which proved the name a winner. Borrowed from English underclass, imported to Van Diemen’s Land, modified into a term of affection, rum’un is parochial and proud. Unapologetic, its difference is manifested in the devil’s mongrel make-up, a Frankenstein story of semantics and history.

JackJumpers play an equal role in the NBL, the island’s endemic ants magnified by the state’s basketballers. No doubt Hobart’s netballing powers are pondering the Turbo Chook as logo, local slang for the scrub hen, should a franchise ever emerge – or the Badger, at a stretch.

Straw-polling a few Tassie friends, I found they loved the home-grown cheek. The tribal wink. “My ears pricked up when I heard the name,” said one mate, John, who now calls Melbourne home. “Rum’un was a word from my dad’s generation, but still very much alive when I grew up.” Revived and kicking Sherrins now. Kicking goals, too, before a ball is even bounced, and that’s a bloody ringtail roarer. Wait, did I use that right?

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