Be careful what you say

Feb 08, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

People always say that one should be careful about what one says. Sometimes in a fit of anger we simply utter the first words that come to our mouths. Indeed, many a fight has broken out because of words spoken in anger. Sometimes we wish that we did not utter the hurtful words but like the spent arrow, those words cannot be recalled.
There was Mayor Hamilton Green who, at a meeting, described his Town Clerk as El Jefe— a Spanish term meaning “the Chief”. But tempers were raging and the Town Clerk, a buxom woman, took offence. She heard the mayor call her a heifer.
Indeed any woman of size would be angry to be called a heifer and the Town Clerk, Beulah Williams, was one who would become angry. The quarrel raged, fuelled by the media. It was some time later that the mayor got to say his bit. He explained what he really said, and that should have been the end of the matter, except for the fact that the Town Clerk insisted that heifer was what she heard.
As an editor, I myself have had my share of controversies. I remember telling a young man to rectify some bit of drivel that he had written. The young man was angry and I suppose had I not been the editor, I would have been at the receiving end of something worse than a surly look.
I saw the young man go to his colleagues and I saw them glancing me and laughing. I felt a bit apprehensive, because in my book I had done nothing wrong. But sometimes there are people who would prolong the agony. Later, I learnt that the young man went to his colleagues and reported that I had said something about his rectum and that I perhaps was gay. The man associated rectify with his rectum.
On many occasions we also hear people say that a man was suffering from some prostrate disorder. A woman read that a man lay prostrate on the road and she simply said, “That prostrate is something men have to worry about. Nuff men does dead from it.”
Don’t say procrastinate to some people these days. I heard a colleague of mine tell a young reporter that she is a procrastinator. The young woman replied that she was no cross, that my colleague should go home and see where the cross is.
The truth is that people do not read these days. They would sit glued to the television and soak up everything that is broadcast. In the olden days when someone heard a word, that person would seek out a dictionary. These days I doubt that many young people know to use a dictionary. That is why progenitor led to a woman complaining to her supervisor that a colleague insulted her.
In her book, the word pro meant forward and genitor meant something about her genitals. The laughter had barely died down when a fight broke out as someone said to a fellow worker that he was pudgy. Indeed the fellow was, but as they say, a little learning could be a dangerous thing. The fellow concluded that pudgy was short for pugilistic.
How do you tell a mother that her son would be sent to a penal settlement? Many would conclude that the settle has something to do with penis, and would imagine their sons getting into all sorts of problems with other men.
In the vernacular, there is the word “sotie”, a reference to a male genital organ. So when a man walked into a restaurant and booked a table only to order his meat sautéed, the couple nearby looked at each other, got up and left muttering that they did not know such things went on in the restaurant. The woman wanted to know which chef would place his “sotie” on people’s food.
Back when I was a schoolboy, I was introduced to a lovely little book named ‘The Rivals’, written by Richard Sheridan. This play, according to Wikipedia, was staged back in 1775, and it featured a Mrs. Malaprop who gave meaning to the term ‘Malapropism’. She would have done well in today’s Guyana.
For her, her contiguous neighbour was contagious. Of course the neighbour might very well have been, but then again the neighbour might not have been. Thanks to her or perhaps no thanks, I enjoy some of the comments by people around me. How else can I laugh when I say that cows are domesticated and the person would reply, “Of course they are. No one ever said that a cow can talk. Indeed, it is dumb.”
Degenerate has nothing to do with a generator and I still remember my friend Chandra Narine Sharma announcing that should he be elected to high office he would electrocute the entire Guyana. Of course he meant electrify. But then again, perhaps he meant what he said, because these days with all the criminals around, the country needs electrocuting.
There is the story about a father who took his daughter to the hospital after she sustained a head injury. The doctor simply remarked that she got a nasty crack. He got a punch from the father. Or the man whose wife was involved in an accident and needed a CT scan. A few years ago, we all said CAT scan, but that has changed because of the man. He said that his wife did not need such a scan when in fact the injury was to her upper body.