It’s been a wonderful week for the eloquence , depth and complexity of usage of the English language .
“Never mind the bollocks. Here’s the Sex Pistols!” That was the title of the rock band the Sex Pistols’ long playing vinyl record away back in the the 1970s . It crashed into the complacency of the music business some forty years ago and blew new rock ‘n’ roll life into the pink blandness of a stale and otherwise socially- strapped UK. It was a retort to dullness, powerlessness, po-facedness and three-day weeks .Posters and adverts for the record were emblazoned across the land. That caused a bit of a kerfuffle behind gasping net curtains. There was a resulting court case and it was finally deemed that the word “bollocks” was not, in fact ,an obscenity.Of course it wasn’t .Obscenity is all in the mind.
“Bollocks”.. Now that’s a great old word isn’t it?Take a good look at it as it sits on the page .It’s sort of round and full with a wee sharp kick in the tail. It’s been a wonderful week for the English language , hasn’t it? . In the news media “bastards” and “bollocks” has been flying about like gulls at the seaside. Sinn Fein members , the sometimes ,most prominent , Northern Irish custodians of all thing Gaelic and Irish, are better at the usage of these emotive old Anglo-Saxon words and phrases than anyone else in public life here .Every bit as English as the English themselves, eh?. Isn’t that one for the books? We’ve had Gerry Adams referring to some racists and bigots hidden in the rump of unionism as “bastards” …..in conversation. At the same gathering, Michelle Gildernew has been reported as calling Gregory “Crooked Mouth ” Campbell {Cam Beal} a “bollocks”…..or possibly a “bollix”.?
I’ve seen the word spelt as “bollix” or “ballicks”, before now ,so what is it’s true meaning, then? A journalist has even said on radio just now that is a “swear word”.. I had to scratch my head at that one . A few days ago they were calling “bastard” a swear word too.Have these people been living under a rock all their lives ? Have they never read anything? Are they alive in the real world where these words are readily bandied about in conversation, in film , literature and the theatre …among consenting adults? I dare say , if you went to the pub for a pint or the barber for a trim , you’d overhear these words on any given day.
“Bollocks”has its origins in Anglo-Saxon as a term for”testicles”.Half the population may be so endowed but that is only half the story. The word is also often used in English to denote nonsense or to refer to a non-sensible person or thing; or as an expletive when you thump your thumb with a hammer while banging in a nail.It’s been used as a term for a useless person or a foolish one. “That’s a load of old bollocks” is used as a term to denote the uselessness or inappropriateness of a situation or a performance.. English people will also say that something is “the dog’s bollocks”, as a term of respect or to denote the high quality of something.A very malleable word then.
It might have its origins in the 13th century because one of the earliest written references appears in John Wycliffe bible (1382), Leviticus xxii, 24: “Al beeste, that … kitt and taken a wey the ballokes is, ye shulen not offre to the Lord…” (any beast that is cut and taken away the bollocks, you shall not offer to the Lord, i.e. castrated animals are not suitable as sacrifices).
In the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, bollocks or ballocks was sometimes used as a slang term for a clergyman because clergymen were notorious for talking nonsense during sermons.
It has been used as “ball-licks “to denigrate someone to the level of a hound licking its own cojones under its master’s table .A lowly person in that respect.
People, of course, are very funny about the sounds that pop out of their mouths and words can so easily change their meaning by circumstances, age , place in time and even inflexion.”Balls” is a funny one for example, even though the word describes the spherical objects used in a lot of sporting games. The common name Jesus or Dick are other ones .Even “bloody” can cause some people problems.
As I write , the Plebgate Scandal has reached its conclusion and Andrew Mitchell , the Westminster minister has been convicted of accusing some policemen of being “fucking plebs”. No real offence was taken by the descriptive verb “fucking”, but great exception was taken to the appellation”plebs”.
As Shakespeare might have put it, the verb is simply describing the ease or otherwise as to how us “rude mechanicals” are able to stand on our own two little legs and emote in the first place . It is the very act that made us all. It’s a good thing Mr Mitchell didn’t call these policemen “peelers”, “cops” or…… “rude mechanicals”
Crikey!!!! I can’t wait to see what revelations and absurdities next week will bring.
“My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial day.”…….William Shakespeare
The favourite term of Zulu heartland leader Chief Prince Mangosuthu “Gatsha” Buthelezi used against Mandela’s corrupt cronies in government is “balderdash”.
Freezes them stony-faced every time!
“senseless talk or writing; nonsense.
“she dismissed talk of plots as ‘balderdash'”
elsewhere:
“senseless, stupid, or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense.”
“Obsolete. a muddled mixture of liquors.”
Origin: 1590-1600; of obscure origin
(Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2014.)
and (British Dictionary):
“stupid or illogical talk; senseless rubbish”
I wonder if the DUP ha.ve heard of the word?
Fella went into the chemist the other day and asked for lemon-scented deoderant.
Did he want the ball type, he was asked?
No, just the underarm type, says he.
Yes, Anthony ….”balderdash” is a great old one that really needs to be used more often.My feeling that the vocabulary in general use today needs some spicing and peppering up again. “Balderdash” is often heard in Norneverland but seldom referred to . time for a revival ,methinks!!
@ Anthony Leisegang – Just a slight variation on the joke – i heard it over in the UK a few years ago…
– A Dutch chap walks into Boots (the Chemist), and asks for some deoderant. – the Sales Assistant asks him “Ball…or aerosol?” – the Dutch chap replies…”Neither, – it is for my armpits”.
By the way, i’m not sure if you ‘tracked-back’ to the ‘Why do men hate women’ blog. I left a reply for you there – it’s at the very end of the blog – you very well may not have seen it. I sent it in good faith, and hope you’ll take it the same way, if you choose to go back to it via the blue monthly system at the top right of the screen.
i dtaca le.
Very interesting and thought provoking as usual harry, thank you. Speaking of b words, how are your bees doing this weather? I read more bad news about a parasite that thrives in warmer climes could decimate the bee population if climate change continues. To be truthful, I’d rather worry about those b words..
The little bees are actually still active…not too much….but still, tomorrow’s December.It’s way too mild and weird for the time of year, isn’t it?Hopefully they’ll settle down and rest soon, Pat?….
Exotically enough, Harry, but the most celebrated use of the b-word in the literature of leprechaun has to do with one of the H-name. It was a quatrain composed by the Blind Poet O Raifteiri about two hundred years ago about the King called ‘Fat Harry’ and was a favourite party piece of the B-man himself, Brendan Behan.
(Perkie’s inner B for Bruno is tempted to say: know wharr I mean, ‘arry? But will desist.)
Seems like a proselytising Protestant minister, possibly called the Rev. Royco or maybe even Canon Campbell decided that the local super-star Raifteiri would be a valuable catch. For, once he had been duly simmered into a souper-star by the due process of the kitchen cabinet, he would then compose poetry which would encourage other RC’s to convert.
Alas, being the consomme contrarian he was, the Blind Poet smelt a rodent (his olfactory nerves worked 24/7) and so, was prompted to write:
Fag uaim do eaglais ghallda
Is do chreideamh gan bhonn gan bhri
Mar gurb e is cloch bonn doibh
Magairli Anrai Ri.
(Translation by the indefatigable Ann O’Nymous, D. Litt)
Away with your English religion
And your baseless meaningless faith,
For the only rock it is built on
Are the Horlicks of Henry the Eight.
(Ann O’Nymous, needless to remark, was a Victorian lady and a committee member of the Champions League of Decency who would have found even the glimpse of stocking quite shocking. Thus, she substituted the H-word for the B-word. Though folks recognised well enough what she was about, even those who did not let on. Horlicks as well as soup was the stable diet in the Evangelical Hot Pots in the Hibernia of the 19th C as the nutritional malt milk drink had replaced the previously popular curry-flavoured yoghurt. One school of nutritional historians adhere to the theory that the c-f. yoghurt was withdrawn as its benefits were outweighed by its drawbacks. While it did indeed encourage many peckish Papists to cross the Great Divide it also had a deleterious effect on their cake holes. As it rendered them permanentaly crooked).
Thus, in the leprechaun the b-word comes across as a m-word: magairli.
Not sure if it is entirely kosher to mention this but a celebrated butcher shop with the name ‘Mogerley’ over the door, alas no more, stood for many a long year in Little Jerusalem as the Clanbrassil Street area of Dublin was known. It was at the time the only known instance of this surname in the island of Ireland. Indeed, the ultimate surname, one might say.
Many a theory was formulated as to the etymology of the name. But perhaps the theory of B for Brendan Behan (never far away when the b-word is under discussion) is the one which has stood the test of t. best.
That some refugee, a victuraller by trade, from the pogroms of Eastern Europe around the turn of the century (or even the pogrom of Limerick itself) found himself in Dublin far away from his native Lublin with an unpronounceable name along the lines of Mojcierchlowski.
At least to the type of Dublin tongue which finds such leprechaun words as ‘mahogany gaspipes’ difficult to say. On spotting the foreleg, cheeks and maw and other unmentionable items of kosher food in the shop window, a passing Dublin wit (aren’t they all) came up with the alternative.
Thus, was born the M-name.B. Behan, who was in the house painting biz himself, swore he heard this story from the sign painter who p. the original ‘Mogerley’ name over the shop. But then B. Behan swore a lot.
Just around the corner from this virtual victualler’s shop is located a terraced house from the Edwardian era. It boasts a plaque on the wall, to indicate that one, Leopold Bloom was born there. Slightly incorrect, on two counts. The second one of which was that the lower part of Clanbrassil Street, the ‘actual’ part, had already been demolished in the meantime. Before the Sleeveens of Bloom got in on the act.
One house where J. Joyce, in whose Belvedere brain L. Bloom was born, did actually live was in Drumcondra. When this house was listed for demolition the person who campaigned for its preservation was one, Michael Nugent.
Coincidentally, the same hero was in the news during the week, this time wearing his mitre as High Priest of Atheism in the island of Ireland. His considered views were sought by a same same variety of radio stations regarding the vandalism of the RC Cross on top of Ireland’s highest mountain.
Or, ‘The Castration of Carauntool’ as some termed it.
Like the Man Above, Mr. Nugent was all over the shop: a listener could not turn a knob without hearing his reasonable voice. While not, in any shape, mould or form itself condoning this act of vandalism (good heavens, perish the v. thought!) he went on to make the very sensible, thought out and indeed, logical point that Ireland was in a different place to where it was when the Cross had been first erected, back in the d. ages of the 70s. That would be, the 1970s.
Indeed, the coherent arguments of the cogent Mr. Nugent (Michael, not Mick) made such an impresh upon Perkie’s inner doggerelist as may be seen:
Carauntool means an Aunty Clockwise Sickle
The cool tool for culling the symbol dia-bolical
Don’t take much out workin
To see the hand of Dworkin
As bong went at long last Eire’s second testicle.
All I can offer in reply Mighty Perk is that ….
“Hitler has only got one ball,
Göring has two but they are very small,
Himmler has something similar,
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.
…I bow before the might of your poesy….