This widespread profanity just isn't cool

Comment by LUCY BAILEY*

What is special about New Zealand English? It's a weird mix of British pronunciations (tomatoes) and American lingo (gumboots).

There are quaint expressions such as "good as gold", the upward inflexion that turns everything into a question and the "aye" that has to end every statement.

It's been charming to discover these differences, and bewildering that everyone roars with laughter when I say the time is "half-eleven".

Oh, by the way, where I come from no one over the age of 20 would dream of saying "neat" or "awesome".

But all of these are linguistic hiccups compared with the verbal belches that pollute Kiwi culture and communication.

Over here, for some reason, it's considered okay to swear - a cursing that is random and non-aggressive, its true, but nonetheless undoubtedly bad language.

It's one of the first things to strike any visitor. In the days after my arrival, I chuntered through the channels on the radio. At first, I thought it was my jet-lagged imagination - but, no.

Through my sleep-deprived haze I really was hearing the national airwaves shimmer with profanity.

Words beginning with "b", that I didn't consider appropriate for the ears of my toddler, were used freely.

A recent issue of a magazine provides a good example. The editor demurred at printing the word f***en, yet d***head, cr** and ar** all appeared.

Is this NZ literary? Is this NZ cool? Elsewhere, this sort of thing is saved for the rags published on a university campus.

Yes, we'd come to a less formal society. We'd wanted to escape social constraints. We'd sought a place where my husband, a teacher, isn't always addressed by his title at parent interviews.

But there is nothing casual, nothing endearingly relaxed, about a parent calling their child a "little sh**", which is what happened at his latest meeting.

Fine, use these words in the pub, mutter them when you stub your toe, even spit them at your partner.

But should they be officially sanctioned, appearing in national channels of communication, sneaking into my home within respectable publications?

These words are offensive; they mean more than silly or bother. It cheapens the language when they swarm like ants through the world of journalism and other professional settings.

Nuances are important to communication. In a society of immigrants, where other social clues may be absent, they are crucial to being understood.

* Lucy Bailey is an Englishwoman living in Hamilton.