what is fair dinkum
According to Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language, dinkum comes from the English Midlands and meant work. Fair dinkum referred to a fair day's work and subsequently fair play. M. Griffiths, Waterloo. The word dinkum was reputedly coined on the Australian goldfields. It comes from one of the Chinese dialects widely spoken at the diggings: din and kum loosely translating as true gold.