Phraseology

 First published in Column 8 on the 14^th August, 1991

 Back in 1981, a marvellous phrase was sprung on the nation by one Peter Thomas Mahon. He said, amongst other things, that some of the Erebus evidence was ‘an orchestrated litany of lies.’

Because the phrase so hit the mark, it perhaps had the seeds of self-destruction inherent in it. In fact, now that every writer and his brother uses it to describe all manner of things from a schoolboy fib to a prisoner’s plea, its value has plummeted further and further.

By rehashing a well-chosen phrase, those who abuse it merely emphasise their own poverty of expression. Isn’t it a pity some phrases that are so identified with a particular event can’t retain their individuality?

Mahon’s phrase isn’t the only case in point.

The as-yet-undefeated Saddam Hussein, (whom I managed to call Mr Hussein on a previous occasion when he is, as I was smartly informed, Mr Saddam), used a fearsome expression to describe the war that he’d decided he’d win. It was to be ‘the mother of all battles.’

Didn’t that send a shiver up and down your spine? Why it should, anymore than ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’ should have contained such forcefulness, is beyond the realms of explanation and off into the metaphysical.

(Run that by me again, Stanton?)

Now a curious thing evolved. After the battle, Mr Saddam’s phrases turned around and mocked him. Instead of the ‘mother of all battles’ that he intended, he received a sound thrashing – though not sound enough to knock him right off his pedestal. After that the phrase no longer chilled the bone; it merely made you laugh.

What on earth am I trying to get at here? Just this: before the budget (which I recently so succinctly discussed), dear Ruthie adapted the same chilling phrase to her own creation; only she initially used it tongue-in-cheek. (A fact which seems to have bypassed those critics who didn’t hear her saying the words on the telly.)

Unfortunately for Ruth, this now belittled phrase picked itself up again, and gave its new user a push in the moosh. This budget was in no way the mother of anything, unless mothers have become harsh creatures who don’t care about their kids.

Heinemann’s Dictionary of NZ Quotations has a couple of sentences from a man called William Yate, a chiropractic who wrote in 1835, ‘It is not true, as represented in a recent publication, that New Zealand mothers eat their own children. This is too horrible, even for them!’

Mr Yate my have been playing the ironic a little strongly here, but perhaps if he were alive today, he might adjust his words and say, ‘It is true that New Zealand mothers eat their own children. One has just done so!’

I didn’t intend to write about the wretched budget; it just kind of snuck in. But now that it’s here, let me add a little light matter to all this weightier stuff.

My budget-weary eyes brightened when I noticed in the Otago Daily Times business pages, the aptly named New York credit agency Standard and Poor giving its state-side opinion on our budget. (What is a credit agency anyway?)

The name Standard and Poor (who were they?) so tickled my fancy I’d like to suggest we adopt it to cover New Zealand’s up-and-coming non-rich classes. It’ll be appropriate, after all, because soon the only way most of us will have a hope of surviving will be on credit.

Judge Peter Mahon

 A typical Crowl piece that starts off with one idea and winds up somewhere else altogether.