Polem(n)ic

It’s me mam’s birthday so I’ve trundled back to Staffs to see her, and to visit my niece who has turned into a little pudding.

On the train two Brummies were off for a lads’ meet up and chinked their cans of Gordon’s G&T in honour of the Queen’s official birthday. Me mam is in regal company.

I’m reading Lemn Sissay’s book My Name Is Why, about his experiences growing up in the care system. Ignorance and prejudice towards his race led to a crisis of identity and personal struggles that many of us will be lucky enough to avoid. I believe that society acts in a way that heaps vast amounts of insecurity on people, and that society is inherently judgmental the way it has evolved. We don’t often realise when we’re creating issues for others in our use of language and through our complicity in a system of behaviour.

Children absorb language used to describe them from an extremely young age, and it leads to insecurities. Given that I’ve also referred to my niece as a potato as well as a pudding, I do want to be mindful of this. If a nickname sticks and she equates her appearance, even in jest or as an innocent form of endearment, with a pudding or a potato, down the line it could lead to concerns about her body image, and insecurities that are difficult to unpick.

I think it’s a popular view that having conversations like this about the semantics and nuances of language are overly indulgent and the preserve of the ‘woke, liberal elite.’ But I’m from Stoke which is not the home of the elite, despite, bafflingly, voting Tory in the last general election. From my own experience of being exposed to language at school and elsewhere, I feel that the points I make above are very valid.

As we ate pizza in the warm sun in my parents’ garden, I caught up with the local gossip. The pub is having what seems to be its fiftieth refit/reopening in the last twenty years and the chef left his post mid-shift on Christmas Day. Apologies to the local Staffs residents awaiting their stuffing.

Also, a hen pheasant is very boldly coming into the garden to raid the spoils from the bird feeder. It appeared mere metres away, apparently unbothered. ‘I’ve only seen the cock once’, noted me mam.