OLD DART
[Q] From Chris and Caroline Hayles, Hampshire, UK: “We are trying to establish what is meant by the Old Dart and where it comes from. On a genealogy list we belong to they seem to think it means England, due to Dartmoor Prison, but we have never heard the expression before and nor have any of our friends and family. If you could please enlighten us to its origins we would be grateful, especially as we are English and have never heard of it!”
[A] The first part is easy: it’s a term in Australia and New Zealand with the same meaning as Old Country — the British Isles, in particular England. It’s not known in the Old Country, so it’s not surprising you have never heard it. The Australian National Dictionary (AND) from Oxford University Press first records it in an Adelaide newspaper in 1892: “He was from England ... He is one of the sort who return to the old dart and say that fruit-growing here is a failure”. The lack of explanation suggests that the writer expected it to be understood by his readers.
Nobody can be entirely certain where it comes from, though it is quite certain it has nothing to do with the infamous Dartmoor Prison. There are earlier usages of dart that suggest it is a dialect way of saying dirt — the AND has an example from 1859 showing it was specifically applied to pay dirt in gold diggings. By the 1880s it had been extended in Sydney slang to refer to an object of attraction, some enticing thing or event, or some set purpose. But the usage in Old Dart seems to look back to the original sense of dirt, albeit figuratively, and the idea behind it seems to be close to the Irish old sod for one’s native district or country.
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