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by lorelai_b8 on September 11th, 2005
The origin of fair dinkum is from the goldrushes in the 1800s in Australia. Chinese gold miners used to describe gold as "din gum" meaning "real gold" in Chinese. It means that it is the absolute truth, completely genuine. You can also just say "dinkum", meaning authentic.
So you might say, "fair dinkum, I won the lottery yesterday."
But I've noticed that most people in Australia lately have been using it like you would "you're joking".
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