The right place, time and way for use of four-letter words

Otago Daily Times

26-05-2025

Let's look at four-letter words.
"Word" is one of them, as indeed are "blob", "slob" and "knob" but I have a couple of others in mind, neither of which I use, save in the context of telling a story. Here are two of the stories.
Years ago, in Timaru, there was a Dunedin-born barber called Ernest Firkin who plied his trade for almost 40 years from about 1905. An entertainer and raconteur, he became something of a haircutting legend in his shop near the Excelsior Hotel. He sold the business in 1935 to my grandfather who was not a barber and kept Ernest on as the real heart of the place. Grandad held the shop for only four years and then set up a transport business and the new barber shop owner, Syd Burns, also retained the services of Ernest Firkin.
When Grandad talked, always among male-only company, of his days owning a hairdressing/tobacconist shop my young years would be flapping as he described how any Timaruvian whose hair was offensively long was told to, "Go and get a Firkin haircut".
"Ah," I thought, "that simply means patronising Mr Firkin when you needed a bit off the top and short back and sides."
In later times, having been introduced to crude language at secondary school, I realised that Grandad's tale was a great piece of punning and let out a much-delayed guffaw. It still makes me chuckle.
Even more enjoyable was the story from Australian politics. You need to know that Australia's National Party began in the 1920s as the Australian Country Party which became the National Country Party in 1975 until the present name was adopted in 1982.
It seems that before 1975, during a time when the Country Party was in power, the Labour Opposition under Gough Whitlam were launching yet another spirited attack on the government and its policies. An incensed government MP Winston Turnbull broke through the clamour by proudly proclaiming, "I'm a Country member!" Whitlam interjected with, "I remember".
That superb and subtle play on words was lost on Turnbull and years later Gough Whitlam recalled, "Turnbull could not understand why, for the first time in all the years he had been speaking in the House, there was instant and loud applause from both sides."
What I enjoy about those two stories is that the naughty four-letter words have been introduced with great effect without ever using them. A feat of subtlety and wit obviously beyond the ability of today's politicians and rabble-rousers. Of course, during my time in army training and public bar drinking I've heard those words used to saturation point, usually by people who are actually unaware that they are saying them. Harmless, really, in such environments, but in places like Parliament or a mixed-sex gathering they simply mark the speaker as ignorant, oafish and to be avoided.
Parliament has long had its naughty four-letter words and MPs are instantly ejected from the House when they use them. "Lied", "liar" and "lies" are absolutely forbidden when applied to another member but the fact that members do not always tell the truth can be indicated with "unfactual", "out of touch with reality" and "economical with the truth" and other euphemisms.
Happily, I'm able to avoid the kind of people who descended to using the four-letter word which had the House reeling in shock recently but, less happily, there's another four-letter word which assaults my ears at every turn. I'll even spell it out.
L.I.K.E.
It seems that no-one under 40 is able to open their mouth without dribbling a flood of "likes".
"It was like pretty tough up front," the rugby player tells the media.
"They were, like, screwing the scrum half the time and we were, like, struggling a bit."
This saturation of speech with "like" offends me more than the odd bit of crudity. Where will it end? Are we yet to witness a man of the cloth sermonising with the wedding feast at Cana as his theme? He will have swotted up his Bible, especially John 2:1-12, and be ready to tell the tale in a way his audience will appreciate.
"And so, dear brethren, like, on the third day there was, like, a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also, like, invited. Then, like, the wine ran out and the mother of Jesus said to him, like, 'They have no wine.' Jesus was able, like, to change water into wine and it was, like, a miracle."
In fact, it was a miracle, like it or not.
It will also take a miracle, it seems, to rid us of that constant use of "like" as nothing more than a prop to assist the slow working of dull minds.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.