David Cameron’s use of the word “twat” in an interview yesterday on Absolute Radio has provoked considerable outrage, most of it ersatz, in this morning’s press. Why, it has even incurred the opprobrium of no less a figure than the magisterial Stephen Pound.
A number of points need to be made about what is, in reality, just another silly season story:
- Most people, unless they are astonishingly virtuous, tend to swear from time to time. They usually do so in times of stress. Since politics is a particularly stressful occupation, it tends also to be a fairly sweary one;
- Nevertheless, there is swearing and swearing. What is taboo to one generation can become acceptable to the next. When I was a boy, for example, the words “bloody”, “bastard” and “bugger” were unrepeatable; now it can be a term of endearment to call someone a “bloody old bastard”, particularly if you happen to be Australian;
- The word “twat” has evolved over recent years and has lost most of its anatomical connotations. Nowadays, it tends to be considered a slightly stronger form of “twit”, which is still in use, or the wartime RAF “twerp”, which is not. Cameron was consciously alluding to this when he said that “too many twits might make a twat” (which is, in any case, rather funny);
- That the word has become reasonably acceptable is evidenced by the fact that almost all this morning’s papers quote Cameron verbatim, which would not have been the case had he used the f- or c- words (which, of course, he never would);
- The partial exception to 4 above is an article by Richard Dixon, chief revise editor of the Times, who quotes the word in full only once, but otherwise uses asterisks or refers to it as the t-word; it is, says Mr Dixon, classified by the Thunderer as “taboo/vulgar slang”;
- It may be, however, that one day even the Times will feel it appropriate to relent and allow the unexpurgated t-word to be used in extenso in its hallowed columns. Don’t hold your breath, though. It was only last December that it decided to cease referring to the capital of the state of Maharashtra as “Bombay” and to start calling it “Mumbai” – at least a decade after most other national newspapers.
“F” “C” or “T” word, it matters not, he said it, I’m sure that he would rather not have said it.
The fact that he said it and would not have said another of the represented words just shows that he is human. He made a mistake but he was having a laugh. To err is human to forgive divine.
It’s about time the twits who criticise his slip got a life.
I was once very severely castigated for calling Plaid Cymru members a bunch of Twats, I feel the embarrassment to this day of the way the whole thing was blown up at the time.
Funny enough, time has proved me correct, but I did have to apologise at the time!
‘Tis a fine line betwixt a twat and a twit,
and I fear that Dave has just crossed over it!
Peter Stewart
Oh woe is me on reading that
Dear dave has been a little twat
But then my friends why be surprised!
tis just a twit in ‘Dave disguise’
While I agree with you on his use of the t-word, David Cameron certainly made a twit of himself by showing that he’s unfamiliar with internet terminology. A post on Twitter is a “tweet”, not a “twit”, as is the sound made by a bird.
Yes, but I think most grown-ups feel pretty silly using that expression.
So they don’t feel silly using a word meaning “a foolish person” to describe a post to Twitter, when the site is clearly named after the sound birds make?
Are these grown-ups the same ones who feel silly using the word “internet”, so call it “interweb” instead? Talk about out-of-touch politicians!
Good point. And an important one, too.