Where "Flat Out Like a Lizard Drinking" Comes From
The phrase plays on a double meaning of "flat out" — meaning both lying flat and going at full speed. A lizard drinking water lies completely flat on the ground with its tongue darting rapidly — so the image captures both exhausted stillness and frantic busyness at once.
It's a deliberate piece of Australian wordplay: the listener has to hold two contradictory images in mind simultaneously, which is part of the humour. Used to mean someone is extremely busy or moving very fast.
This one has an unusually precise paper trail: the earliest known appearance in print is 10 February 1930, in The Uralla Times (NSW), describing a cricket team going "flat out, like the lizard drinking" while chasing runs. It resurfaced later that year as a submitted entry in a newspaper simile competition, then in farming and rugby reports — by July 1930 one paper was already calling it "proverbial," meaning it had caught on fast.
Source: Word Histories — "flat out like a lizard drinking": meanings and origin
"Can't talk - flat out like a lizard drinking."
How Aussies Actually Use It
Said whenever life gets hectic — flat out at work, flat out with the kids, flat out during harvest. It's a cheerful, self-deprecating way to explain why you haven't returned a call or finished a job yet.
Usually delivered with a laugh rather than genuine complaint, in keeping with the Aussie habit of not taking busyness (or yourself) too seriously.
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