What does 'Dingo ate my baby' mean in Australia?
Australian slang 'Dingo ate my baby' meaning?
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The incident occurred in Australia in 1980 – a baby disappeared under mysterious circumstances near Uluru (Ayers Rock). The mother, Lindy Chamberlain, camping with her family, claimed to have seen a dingo carrying her baby from their tent, and immortalized the phrase, “The dingo’s got my baby!”. She was convicted of murdering her baby but later acquitted when new evidence suggested that the baby was, in fact, killed by a dingo
The saga reached far beyond Australia when it inspired “Cry in the Dark,” a 1988 movie starring Meryl Streep. And as popular culture transmuted tragedy into morbid comedy, a misquote from the movie, “A dingo ate my baby!,” caught on, popping up in “Seinfeld,” “The Simpsons” and other shows.