Back to Back

We have two fridges. One in the kitchen for regular stuff and one in the garage which contains rarely used cordials and aperitifs, some vegetables and a lot of beer. We call it the back fridge. We call it the back fridge because the other fridge has always been called the back fridge even though it is not in the back. It is, as I have told you and paragraph one is mighty early for repetition, in the garage and the garage is in the front of the house to be near the driveway.

The second fridge became a thing in our previous house when we got a new fridge before the other one died properly. We put the old one, with the freezer, in an unused downstairs room which was a bit like a cellar. It was a three story Victorian terrace and the third floor (lower ground) was not visible from the road. The lower-ground front room in that house had no natural light and we used it as storage space. Others who bought such houses in the street made an access space for natural light and made an extra living room but were plagued by damp problems unless they spent a fortune.

Did you spot the weird thing in that little section? I passed over it quickly but I said, quite clearly, that the cellar room with the fridge in was the 'lower-ground front room'.

Which means, by my calculation, that although from the kitchen the cellar room was often behind you, it was never in the back. It has always been the front fridge and has been misnamed for over 25 years. We're going to start calling it by its proper name. We'll try, anyway. I wonder how long it will take. Would you bother to change your language if it was proved to be completely inappropriate? Would you work at it?

It's a good question, and why this little piece is about far more than fridges.

Flippin' Journalists

The UKIP Treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, said something which is accurate but most people wouldn't say. He said there are some things, and he mentioned poker, bridge and chess, which men do better than women by and large yet there are no physical attributes necessary for these indoor, parlour pursuits. He concluded that having quotas for gender representation on boards was perhaps inadvisable.

Interviewed on The World at One he accepted that there were many things women did better than men, that mixed gender representation was pretty much a good thing and that he said what he said in the context of a meeting where gender balance on everything was being pushed as the right line and he felt it needed careful cashing out.

Now there is a certain delight journalists take in developing someone's slightly inappropriate and out-of-context comment into a major faux pas. I will bow to no-one in my dislike of UKIP although I take some pleasure in the thought that their very silly ticket may split the silly vote and allow a centre-left administration back in.

The summary at the end of The World at One was that Wheeler had called for an end to fixed quotas for females on lists of applicants. As far as I can tell from his interview and other quotes he did no such thing. It is naughty to suggest so. I hate it when this happens to politicians I like so feel duty-bound to denounce it happening to someone I loathe too.

He was also asked to comment on a joke about attendance at one of Berlusconi's 'bunga-bunga' parties. Jokes never work out of context. Once reported they only cause trouble.

Tarring UKIP with the misogynistic slap-stick brush (what shape would that be?) is not necessary. They make themselves look stupid, given time. Let's not exaggerate for effect. No effect is necessary.

The Guardian utterly wimps out

In the Guardian each day there is a wonderful 'Eyewitness' double page of a huge colour photograph. Always exciting, illuminating and worthwhile.

Last Tuesday the picture was of Mount Moses, Sinai. The caption in the paper said:

Sunrise on Mount Moses or Jebel Musa (7,497 ft) in Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments and Muhammed's horse Boraq ascended to heaven.

A letter writer said this, today:

Surely the caption on your picture of Mount Moses (Eyewitness, 11 August) stating it was "where Moses received the 10 Commandments and Muhammad's horse Boraq ascended to heaven" is missing the word "allegedly"?

The caption on the web page now reads:

Sunrise on Mount Moses or Jebel Musa, where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments and the prophet Muhammad's horse, Boraq, ascended to heaven.

Now I am not of the view that all Bible accounts are to be taken as historically accurate, but I love the introduction of uncertainty into the biblical account whilst maintaining unqualified acceptance of the Islamic tradition. Wimps. Unless it was deliberate. In which case - a curse on them and all their camels.

Swearing

Excuse me but I won't be asterisking this one. Don't read it if you are offended by strong language.

We haven't talked about this subject for a while. I notice that there has been an attempt to censure Gordon Ramsay because a recent programme included nearly 200 examples of the F-word. It got me thinking. Do 200 fucks in an hour change the status of the word?

I have had a few eureka moments over the years on this subject:

1. Aged about seven I asked my Dad what the writing on the swimming pool cubicle wall meant. 'Daddy, what's a baster?' I could tell from the pause that I had now accessed a really good thing to say when I wanted attention.

2. A plumber, called to my office in about 1980, pronounced a verdict on a radiator valve, 'The fucking fucker's fucking fucked.' We were in no doubt what he meant and wondered if we could spend a whole day communicating only with profanities and an occasional definite or indefinite article.

3. At theological college our football team once had a player sent off for bad language but, in his defence, he'd spent the previous years before ordination undercover with the drug squad.

4. My ordination. I get very peeved when people apologise for swearing in front of me. It is one of the reasons why I find a dog collar changes everything and prefer to avoid it. I take very seriously the charge that we should be slow to take offence so nobody should ever have to apologise for treating me like they treat others.

5. I recall from the early 1990s when Paul Gascoigne was dismissed from a football pitch for using foul and abusive language. He complained about the referee, 'That wasn't swearing at him; it was just swearing.'

6. A mother I overheard, dragging her six year year old round a supermarket about 1997, told him, 'Don't you ever fucking talk to me like that again.'

Enough eurekas. What would Archimedes have shouted today? Well he would, wouldn't he? Almost certainly.

The Bible has a lot to say about not swearing but it almost always refers to oaths - the preferred way of life for the Christian is to let your yes be yes and your no be no. No mantra or occasion should change that.

The bit of the Bible that those of us who aren't that bothered about bad language need to get to grips with is Ephesians 4:29, 'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up...' So even if we feel an occasional expletive isn't the end of the world we need to gauge the audience. The nature of an internet audience is such that I needed to offer the warning at the start of the post as I know it will be read by the offended and unoffended simultaneously. It may not build everyone up. You will find the word pisseth in the Authorised Version. When Paul counts everything rubbish save that of knowing the Gospel it would be as good a translation as any to say he counts it all crap.

It has been an interesting season for language. Carol Thatcher lost her job at the BBC for the use of the word golliwog. Quite right too. We've been educating on this subject for over twenty years now. She should have known better. Prince Charles got away with calling an Asian Sooty, mainly because the guy himself took it in such good spirit. These days I may write fuck but always asterisk ni**er. Race has become the language monitor.

I'd call someone a silly bugger but not a silly c**t. Is a tosser better than a wanker? Can't believe I wrote that but do have a care about what I'm trying to discuss.

I'm playing a parental advisory CD right now. 'Parental advisory' is usually taken to mean we don't play it in front of our parents. My mother's deaf and my father's only one letter different. My mother-in-law is delightfully liberal these days. So I would.

Language changes, moves on, evolves. Teenagers develop their own. We don't get it. That's the point. We can be insulted without knowing. Those of us who say strewth, blimey, flipping, sugar and crikey are all swearing in a way. Try gladioli or Falcon Camps if you really need a substitute.

So back to the top. The more we use the word fuck the more we downgrade it. It loses its power to offend. I think, because of hanging around with users of fairly industrial language most of my life, I am unoffended but shouldn't simply copy. I need to be very careful who I am speaking to. You?

Inclusive Language

I think for me the whole debate about inclusive language was something I became aware of at theological college. The college worship book had a note at the front that the male pronoun was used generically throughout and, whilst I had no personal opinion on that, I heard many of the female ordinands objecting. This would have been 1981 or so.

In Mapperley 1984 onwards a close friend who was doing women's studies at university corrected me for telling my children to wait for the 'green man' at a crossing. 'It's not a man, it's a person,' she said. 'It has no gender.'

Several glasses of wine and after dinner chats later and I became convinced that a willingness to change my language to inclusive was a key to changing any ingrained prejudice. It kept me thinking about inclusivity.

Always a promoter of gender equality I have, since then, tried very hard to avoid using male pronouns generically or to make assumptions in that direction. I am happy to be corrected when I err and won't get over defensive. Dustmen become refuse collectors even though they are all male. I try not to call the woman who delivers my mail a postman. And so on.

Our church (Holy Trinity with Trendlewood, Nailsea) has a vacancy for a new Rector. We will be encouraging applications from women and men. Several times in public meetings since then people have spoken about the new Rector as if that person would inevitably be a 'he.' I am dismayed to say that I have even done that myself. It may have been short-hand but it was more like lazy-hand. I was wrong.

Please pray for the person, male or female, tall or short, fat or thin, young or old, gay or straight, married or single, black or white who is to be our new Rector. They could even support the Wolves. I can't believe I said that.

What's Black?

WikiAnswers says, 'Barack Obama is a multiracial American. His father was an economics student from Nairobi, his mother a white American. They divorced when Obama was young, and his father returned to Kenya. Obama was raised by his mother until about age 10, when his maternal grandmother in Honolulu took him in.'

OK listen. I'll try and do this in as PC a way as possible but might slip up. It won't be intentional. Let's leap in. Why, when he is of mixed race, is Barack Obama described as black?

Consider this. He is campaigning in the deep (and occasionally racist) south. Would he say, 'I am proud to stand here before you ready to be the next in a long line of great, white Presidents of the USA.' I can't imagine that. The evidence before the eyes of those who believe anyone with a bit of black in their genes is competely black, would be overwhelming. This man looks black (they would say).

So when Obama allows commentators to say that he will be America's first black President (24 having smoothed the way for him, well done President Palmer) is he actually playing the race card he seems to so despise?

Now get me right here. I am an Obama fan and care not for ethnicity in making that decision. I think he will make a great president and hope he makes it. Galatians 3:28 is the guiding light to that which I already felt I knew by common sense.

The melting pot that is my much-invaded island probably means I contain a fair chunk of Latin, Norse and Germanic genetic material. Further back? Who can know? Friends. We're all mixed race aren't we?

Lord

Words eh? What a problem they are. I communicate with you doesn't necessarily mean you hear me. I speak doesn't mean you understand. I teach doesn't mean you learn.

This is particularly close to my heart this morning as I go off for the day with the Christ Church / Tickenham staff team and readers. I have an hour to look at communication, or how we perceive each other and things differently.

Last week's headline in the Church of England Newspaper, and reported in many other places, was, 'Anger over Bishop Schori's reluctance to call Jesus 'Lord'.'

Bishop Katharine Schori is a woman. Reading the article you discover that she is not so much reluctant to call Jesus 'Lord' as reluctant to start there in conversation because words such as 'Lord' and 'Saviour' are so hard to translate these days. She says she would start with 'friend' or 'prophet' because people understand these.

Listen to this critique from the Rev'd George Curry, Chairman of the Church Society, put in the words of Ed Beavan, CEN writer. 'Mr Curry wondered if Ms Schori's problem with the title was an effort not to offend, and could also highlight the main problem of humankind is his sin.'

It's a pain isn't it? You sidestep the puddle and fall in the lake. All that effort to change mankind to humankind and then you give the lie to your vain attempt at inclusivity by choosing the pronoun 'his'.

It may be a generation thing. I am one of the oldest people I know who has made a desperate attempt to change and even I stumble a lot (although when I call women 'babes' there is a crashing sense of irony - trust me). Changing our language may not change our thoughts but it does remind us that there is a need to change. Stopping to think before using inclusive language will, pleasingly, slow some down. It will also be an acknowledgement that language means something and if we speak of humankind as male it reveals a bit about how we think.

So let's not be over hasty to criticise someone who, for a change in Christian leadership, doesn't want to Lord it over others.

A Short PC Essay

I'm going to have to admit that the tide is coming in. My feet are wet and there is no stopping it. The world has decided to use the term political correctness to describe any act of apparently excessive inclusiveness and I can't stop it. Would that I could.

What is the current definition? Wikipedia, not always right but usually current, says, '...a term used to describe language, or behaviour, which is claimed to be calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to the racial, cultural, or other identity groups being described.'

The truth hiding in this definition is based on the linguistic theory (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) that the language we use shapes our ideals. So if we say 'man' instead of 'person' we are unwittingly giving away our gender bias. The popularity of this hypothesis in the early 80s led to many examples of useful change in areas of disability, education and even liturgy. We stopped sinning against our fellow men and erred and strayed against 'others' or 'other people.' This grated for a bit. Changing single words in well-known hymns and prayers annoyed people who had known the words and used them regularly for many years. Things didn't really improve until a new army of liturgists, steeped in the need for inclusivity, devised totally new material.

I was watching TV a few months ago and an item on local news about the loss of permission for a World War 2 bomber to fly over Coventry and its suburbs. A representative of the airshow the plane was part of clearly explained that they had been unable to obtain insurance this year. This didn't stop the reporters doing a vox pop and eliciting the quote, 'Is this that political correctness then?'

A little later Leamington Town Council delayed putting up its summer hanging baskets until they had done stress tests on all the lamp-post brackets. 'Political correctness gone mad,' said voices in the street. Er no. It's a litigious society who will sue the council for lost wages after cracking a fingernail following a minor tumble on a bit of water that hasn't soaked away in seconds. The whole population will hardly agree to withdraw their rights to action if nutted by a falling hanging basket and so the council was right.

Now other issues are raised by this. 'To make everything yield to considerations of safety is to invite a different risk: that of living without opportunity, progress or growth.' (A.C. Grayling - The Reason of Things.) One of the reasons I felt the need to get out of doing summer camps for teenagers was that I felt I was spending too long on covering my back in case I was sued and not long enough actually being safe.

Writing in The Independent in 2004, Miles Kington defined political correctness as, '...the demand that we should treat every disadvantage as if it conferred dignity upon the sufferer.' This was brilliant. It was actually a politically correct definition of political correctness. There was a danger at the time that, in trying to be inclusive, we were only seeing the disadvantaged as a disadvantage, rather than as people.

So I believe I have lost and we will for ever define political correctness as a bad thing. But let's not chuck out the bath with the bath water (the baby's long gone). There is a need for inclusivity, welcome and hospitality in this world and correcting the way we talk about people makes us stop and think every time we try to include them. We may stumble over our words but language learners stumble lots. Baa baa black sheep was never as offensive to Afro-Carribeans as some right on 1980s lefty political thinkers thought it was. Neither were black boards or black-outs. But gollywogs were and rightly disappeared.

Saying 'It's political correctness gone mad' betrays our unwillingness to go on thinking inclusively these days. It's plain lazy. Let's plumb the bath back in and start over.

Sexist Guff

How female are you? Answer yes or no unless otherwise indicated.

1. Can you quickly name an issue you can deal with personally and privately without involving anyone else in discussion? (yes = 1 point; no = 0)

2. What is the time to the nearest ten minutes (you may not look at a watch or clock until after you have guessed)? (successfully guessed = 1 point; failed = 0; looked at watch before finishing reading instructions = 1)

3. Point east. (successfully identified = 1 point; failed, or don't know how to check = 0)

4. Can you say what you want for supper immediately? (yes = 1 point; no = 0)

5. Do you take a box of tissues to the cinema ? (yes = 0 points; no = 1)

6. Do you know what your correct tyre pressures are? (yes = 1 point; no = 0)

7. Are you finding this funny so far? (yes = 1 point; no = 0)

8. Are your CDs/records/tapes in some sort of order? (yes = 1 point; no = 0; tasteful order based on colour of sleeve = 0)

9. Without looking, do you know what sort of shoes the nearest woman is wearing? (yes = 0 points; no = 1 point; sexy, strappy high-heels over a shapely ankle = 1)

10. In what circumstances might you shout ‘offside?’ (never = no points; any other circumstances = 1 point)


Score 0 Yes, you are definitely a woman
Score 1-3 You may be a woman or simply very in touch with your feminine side
Score 4-6 You are probably a man but you have let things slip a bit recently
Score 7-9 Beer?
Score 10 Offside surely

Lack of heterosexuality may bias the results