10 - “This way be bit more better”

Summary

Revising the grammar section of my thesis for publication took up most of 1971. I rewrote every section, to improve the explanations, generalisations and exemplification. (The semantics part had already been summarised in a long article so a complete discussion of that was postponed until I had time to finish a cross-dialectal dictionary of Dyirbal, which would give me more data on Jalnguy correspondences.) A few grammatical points still needed checking, but I sent the typescript to Cambridge University Press in September, organising it in such a way that bits could be expunged, added or changed at the end of a paragraph, if necessary, after I had done a final check in the field.

We left Canberra in late November, planning a nine-week field trip over the summer vacation. There was a small tent, borrowed from the Department of Geography, for Alison and me to sleep in, and our station wagon – with the back seat folded forward – should do for the kids. Eelsha was now seven, Fergus five and Rowena four. Leaving home before dawn, we made good time, covering the five hundred odd miles to Moree in northern New South Wales by four in the afternoon.

About fifteen miles beyond Moree, we heard a big bang under the bonnet and then another one. Inspection revealed an egg-shaped hole in the side of the engine, with oil pouring out.