Language is ruined. And, as usual, technology is to blame. LOL, OMG and YOLO serve only to prove that if charged by the character, people will readily abandon the rules of spelling and grammar just to save a few lousy bucks. Thanks to texting (or, if you prefer ‘txtg’), unnecessary letters have been stripped out of words. It’s as if the whole planet needs Baby John Burgess and his mighty Wheel of Fortune to return, giving us all one more chance to buy a vowel. I never thought I’d say this but, Baby John, your country needs you.
Language is ruined. And, as usual, technology is to blame. LOL, OMG and YOLO serve only to prove that if charged by the character, people will readily abandon the rules of spelling and grammar just to save a few lousy bucks. Thanks to texting (or, if you prefer ‘txtg’), unnecessary letters have been stripped out of words. It’s as if the whole planet needs Baby John Burgess and his mighty Wheel of Fortune to return, giving us all one more chance to buy a vowel. I never thought I’d say this but, Baby John, your country needs you.
Before language devolved into its current parlous condition, it was a rich and beautiful thing. People used it for all sorts of reasons: declarations of love, war and as a means of paying tribute to great beauty. It was also used to insult people. Sometimes verbal slurs were invented on the spot. But, from time to time, a particular phrase would be accepted as a conventional verbal weapon. A form of short hand, if you will. When Ritchie Cunningham said, ‘Sit on it, bucko,’ you knew he wasn’t kidding around. When Arnold Horshack hit you with, ‘Up your nose with a rubber hose,’ it was a verbal apocalypse. But when I was growing up, we didn’t say ‘bucko’ and we didn’t refer to rubber hoses. Instead, we said, ‘der’.
No rebuke stang as sharply or cut more deeply. In primary school, it was regarded as the ultimate retort, the type that could be greeted either with submission or the offer of an appointment behind the shelter shed after class. When a schoolmate responded by saying ‘der’, it was the equivalent of being slapped with a concrete fish. The only thing worse was if you were hit with, ‘der Fred’.
I have no idea where ‘der’ came from or why such a simple expression wielded such an extraordinary power, but it did. Like the most potent of voodoo ritual chants or incantations, it had the ability to render useless any argument, no matter how potent and terminate even the most passionate plea to reason. It was, in short, the ultimate showstopper.
I must have been in about Grade 4 at the time. As young children are want to do, there was some degree of carry-on. Perhaps someone had created a ‘pet fly’ by attaching a cotton leash to an unsuspecting insect, maybe someone had just been stabbed with a compass; I really can’t recall. But whatever the particular source of mayhem our teacher, Miss Shugg, had been compelled to read us ‘the Riot Act’. This was especially disappointing as, previously, she’d been reading us Norman Lindsay’s ‘The Magic Pudding’. Whatever its particular merits, ‘the Riot Act’ is not nearly as interesting as a never-ending dessert, no matter how sour its attitude, to say nothing of the fact that ‘the Riot Act’ has no pictures.
Every class has a kid that, despite his best efforts, is always in trouble. Through luck or good management, I have never been that person. As Miss Shugg continued reading, the class largely calmed down. Except, of course, for Clive. That’s not his real name. In fact, so much time has now passed since I was in primary school that I can’t remember Clive’s real name. But if his name has failed to stick in my memory, I do recall that trouble stuck to Clive much like a pipe cleaner to project paper after you poured on half a litre of craft glue.
As the rest of group settled down, Clive’s high spirits would not be tamed. The room fell into a smothered silence and Clive was required to stand behind his desk, as Miss Shugg demanded an explanation. When our teacher suggested to Clive that his behaviour was not to a suitable standard, he answered simply by saying, ‘Der’. He probably thought he was agreeing. But this attempted olive branch soon proved to be a fistful of thorns. It was clear to me and, I feel, the rest of the class that Clive’s response was not all that Miss Shugg was hoping for. Her reaction was like thunder. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Sometimes in life you are expected to figure out the answer for yourself. A person in authority will say something that demands a further response but will give you no clue as to what that response should be. When a teacher bellows, ‘I beg your pardon?’ it’s because you’ve said the wrong thing. Obviously, this needs to be corrected as a matter of priority, but ‘I beg your pardon?’ – even at great volume – offers no hint as to what you ought to say. It’s all just guesswork. Although Clive knew he’d said the wrong thing, he had no idea how to make it right.
Quivering like a twig, Clive rummaged through the attic of his mind for a better response. Finally, and in a voice as meek as the most devout church mouse, he answered, ‘der Fred.’ Whereas ‘der Fred’ had always been devastatingly effective in the playground, it was next to useless against Miss Shugg. Rather than recoil or admit defeat, it simply seemed to make her angrier. Whether Clive would have been better off had he said, ‘der Miss Shugg’ is impossible to say, but I learned then that language needs nuance to be effective. It’s obvious, I suppose, and something to which we can all quite heartily say, ‘Der’. Perhaps Clive has learned it since.