BUFFOONER BUFFOONER

BEING A LINGUIST, PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME, “David, what does ‘Bafana Bafana’ mean, and why is the South African team given such a name?” The short answer to this question, of course, used to be “I have no idea”, although I do now, after some research. However, on discovering that the meaning of the double use of the word ‘bafana’ makes it plural, i.e. ‘bafana’ means ‘boy” and ‘bafana bafana’ means ‘boys’, I am now intrigued by the possibilities opened up by this curious formation of plural nouns in whatever of the nineteen official languages of South Africa this expression happens to be.

CURIOUS ASPECTS OF LANGUAGES always interest me more than the languages themselves, which in themselves tend to interest me more than the people who speak them, unless the strangeness of the language indicates some quirk of the people that might be worth looking into. Indeed, fringe languages often show fringe mentalities.

SOMEHOW I HAVE IMAGINED THAT common words like Llanfairpwyllgwyngyll or Blaenauffestiniog give us an insight into the deranged minds of the Welsh people, as well as their confusing of the sounds ‘p’ and ‘q’, enabling them to turn the Latin quinque into pimp, while writing it as ‘pump’. It may equally be true that the last remaining use of the inflected infinitive and future subjunctive in Portuguese shows that they need to be doubly sure that they know who they are talking to, possibly because those to whom they are talking may not be listening.

I OFTEN WISH THAT CERTAIN ASPECTS of these strange tongues could be assimilated into our own, straightforward language. If this were possible, I would gladly use the repeated noun instead of the plural simply for effect. Political writings could be vastly improved by this technique, particularly in these days of the coalition government, which, in its attempts to “cut costs”, yet be “inclusive”, has managed to make record claims for ministerial expenses, possibly because we have two ministers where we used to have one. All of this shows that David Cameron’s idea of a “small government” is a load of ball ball.

WHAT PART OF FOREVER DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?

RICH, LANDED CONSERVATIVES AND VAMPIRES have many things in common, as we discovered when one of the recent spate of unsuccessful Tory Party leaders in opposition was our noble yet instantly forgettable Romanian Dracula Michael Howard (pictured above), but it would be begging belief to imagine that the “swing” towards conservatism in the United Kingdom might have anything to do with a parallel in a bloodthirsty interest in vampires and all things to do with sucking the life blood out of otherwise healthy unemployed gadabouts and busty tavern girls.

YET THIS APPEARS TO BE THE TARGET for the Conservative government and their vegetable-leaf hangers-on the LibDems: the life blood of the weak and unprotected. All of this coincides with the growing success of the tasteless and ill-filmed Twilight movies, based on the abnormally poor writing of the novels, coming together to produce a sort of flailing Kung-Fu of the Twenty-Tens.

IN ENTERTAINMENT TERMS, NO ONE in their right mind would wide-berth a bit of necking of an attractive youngster by someone who knows what they are doing, which is why the Twilight movies and novels are as successful as any Dracula and/or rape and pillage soft-core fantasy adventure work may be, whether in medieval garb or in the horrendous Ugg boots, big hair rollers and floppy summer dresses that today’s female vampire victims appear to wear while they are waiting to join the ranks of those who will become lesbians and suck blood forever. And the remarkably Glee-ful Cee Lo Green track for Eclipse will no doubt lead the underhand erotic film franchise even further into success.

BUT THE PART OF FOREVER THAT the Conservative Party does not understand is clear: as they announce an increase in the retirement age, scaled from 66 to 70 years old “over the near future”, with reductions in benefits for all and sundry, they do not realize that not everyone has a stately home somewhere, and that making factory and farm workers stay in work forever is worse than biting them in the neck.

BOY GEORGE UNCOVERED

THE EMERGENCY BUDGET PRESENTED yesterday by George “Boy Gideon” Osborne (see Sunday Morning, October 2009) must be one of the clearest misnomers of recent times, suggesting that there is truth in the allegation that George hasn’t a clue about what he is doing. The word “emergency” (it says here in my dictionary) means “pressing necessity” and “requiring immediate action”. Thus, a budget that leaves its most important measure to come into effect only in January 2011 should really not be granted this name. And after all the alarmist hoo-hah, one wonders what the fuss was all about. If there is not howling, wailing and a-gnashing of teeth at the moment then the Chancellor cannot be doing what he threatened to do, although, as a good Conservative, he has hammered both single and married women, state school children, the disabled, working class families and the lumpen. The fact that they will not really feel the pain until next year means that Boy George really does want to hurt them, but taunt them first.

YET THERE ARE THOSE WHO are miffed in the short term about the immediate response to the budget announcements made by normally dull and soft-spoken Harriet Harman, deputy leader of what is left of the Labour Party. It is not common for a politician to describe a fellow MP as a “fig leaf”, so when Harman singled out the most conspicuous fig leaves among the LibDems some members of the house who have not had training in classical painting and sculpture were slightly confused. Describing Nick Clegg as Davy Cameron’s fig leaf as well as Vince Cable and Danny Alexander, the two most prominent LibDems in ministerial positions, as Tory fig leaves was not perhaps the best attack on the idiotic coalition of two parties who could not have been more antagonistic in the election campaign, but it was enough.

IN THE SAME DICTIONARY AS ABOVE, it says that a fig leaf “covers up something disgusting or embarrassing”. I am not sure who wrote this dictionary entry, but I am reliably informed by an imaginary friend I sometimes talk to that a fig leaf usually covers up “a penis and testicles”.

RAINBOW WORRIERS

THE LATEST FOOTBALL WORLD CUP competition has started off as lively as one could have imagined, played as it is in a nation in which there are more killings per day than in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Israel put together. In my opinion some of the newspapers and journalists have exaggerated the importance of the robberies and assaults on members of their profession while in their hotels or when out covering the football matches; one reporter today was at pains to point out that “there are petty thefts at hotels all over the world”, which is indeed true, although I doubt that many of these in Britain are carried out by a band of six masked men carrying Uzis, as was the case recently in South Africa.

HOWEVER, THE WORLD CUP is all about football, of which there has been precious little up to now. The perennial favourites, Italy, Germany, Argentina and Brazil, have all played by now, and none have impressed overmuch, yet all seem to have that boring steel that will see one of them lift the trophy. It would be unfair to compare them, given that they have played somewhat different opponents in these first games, but if I were a betting man, which I am, I might be tempted to have a flutter on Uruguay, two time champions who have not won the trophy since the days of black and white television. So conspicuous is this fact that the BBC’s Gary Lineker recently called them the “champions of the black and white days”. A sure pointer for them to win in South Africa.

AND ONCE AGAIN WE ARE ALL SURPRISED by the Koreas. Whether it is the one that makes most of our cars and appliances or the one we will soon reduce to rubble, ruins and ashes along with Iran when we collectively test out our latest version of what used to be called the “Atom Bomb”, both of these countries are going toe-to-toe with the big boys in the footballing world. One wishes the North Korean spirit of joyous triumph could be shared by many so-called “free” countries, forever moaning about financial “crashes” and “belt tightening”.

ALTHOUGH JUNG-MOO HUH, manager of North Korea, refuses to talk to the press unless they refer to his country as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (which no one does), Jong-Hun Kim, of South Korea, also known as Korea Republic, and his players attribute their stamina to the consumption of ginseng. There is no doubt that ginseng is a great help when one needs that extra little bit of energy, and I am never without a decent supply of the “man root” in my bathroom closet, but I find it somewhat difficult to believe that it would enable me to perform at a high level for 90 minutes.

COME ON YOU LIB-DEMS

A HEALTHY LAPSUS LINGUAE may often turn out to have some profound hidden meaning which reveals that the speaker was really thinking about something else at the time of allowing the slip to out. Or on occasion it may set a generous mind into action to try to discover what might be the true meaning of the mistake when applied ‘deliberately’ as if it were not a lapse but a true statement. Thus I was intrigued when I was watching Anna Jones on Sky News recently talking about our good Prime Minister’s plans to apply a hefty increase to students’ tuition fees as from next year.

THE INTERESTING ASPECT ABOUT this entirely predictable announcement by the Conservative Party is the question of how this will be received by the Liberal Democrat members of the coalition government, given that in the election campaign Nick “Deputy Headmaster” Clegg had promised that his party would abolish university tuition fees entirely.

AWARE OF THIS PROBLEMATIC SITUATION, but living in a TV world in which one cannot spend ten minutes without news about England football team and its role in the World Cup, Anna Jones commented “Well I wonder how this Conservative policy will go down with Liberal Democrat fans…” She immediately corrected herself, and perhaps did not even notice the mistake, but at this time of both football and political craziness I began to imagine that the word “fans” might indeed be the appropriate term for those who follow our political parties in earnest.

A GOOD ENGLAND FOOTBALL FAN only really gets involved in activities proper about every four years, as is the case at the moment, in South Africa. Generally the fan is hopeful-ish about victory, but does not really harbour any illusions. The best one hopes for is the third and fourth place play-off. But it is a good opportunity to do a bit of shouting, spend a bit of money and, as is sometimes said, “put oneself about a bit”. One can wear the team colours, preach about the virtues of the “side”, clap and cheer and then go back home again, perhaps after a little drink or two, or perhaps more, and wait for the next tournament in four years time. Now what has that got to do with Liberal Democrat fans?