Kirsty McLuckie - Poor Jacqueline…they've gone and twitted her one

Published on Tuesday 26 August 2008 20:39

THE furore over a rude word used by children's author Jacqueline Wilson in My Sister Jodie, a book read by pre-teens, raises some serious questions.

After selling 150,000 copies already, her publisher decided to change one letter and replace the offending word with "twit" after complaints.

A spokesman said originally the vulgar term had been included "on purpose" because it was uttered by "a nasty character".

You could open a debate about whether or not the use of such a word is more distressing to a youngster than the harsh realities of modern childhood that Wilson's books tackle; domestic violence is a common theme, as are alcoholism, bad parenting and bullying in stories aimed at the youth market.

That many children in Britain will be familiar with these is more of an obscenity than a swear word, it could be argued, by the exceptionally right on.

You could also ask why a word which refers to the female genitalia is so taboo, on a par only with another word meaning the same thing. If you think it's disgusting, I might respond "Speak for yourself".

But according to dictionary sources, whether you faint away at the use of the word, or shrug your shoulders at all the fuss, might depend on where you come from. The theory is that those in Northern Britain see it as akin to the C word, if you are from the south, it is only as bad as saying "knob". Wilson is from Twickenham.

Nor is she the first author to underestimate its power. Robert Browning misused the term in his poem Pippa Passes, believing it to be an item of nun's clothing.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton in a 1870 novel seems to have thought it was another word for tadpole.

The word's origin is obscure, but it probably comes from a dialect variation of a word meaning forest clearing which also gives us the quaint English placename suffix thwaite, which is rather sweet. It has also been used as an acronym for The War Against Terror, but only by those living a very sheltered life, I'd imagine.

Whatever your take on its usage, you have to admit that replacing it with the word twit just doesn't have the same connotations. I take the examples given on Wikipedia to illustrate how it weakens the sentiment: To hit something (or someone) hard or violently – "I twitted him one"; to be drunk or otherwise intoxicated – "let's get twitted"; and the one which made me snort with adolescent guffaws: to express annoyance – "I caught my twitting fingers in it."

And, of course, censoring the word universally would mean signage expense in Orkney and Shetland, where two villages would have to be rechristened Twitt.

Beware Motoring tWits…

IT IS unlikely to surprise anyone that it was a BMW driver who was caught doing 122mph in a 60mph zone during the weekend. The police clocked the driver in the Borders during a campaign targeting Scotland's rural roads.

An Auto Trader poll released in July showed that Beamer drivers are considered by far and away the most annoying, most likely to speed, tailgate and generally noise up other drivers. But I learned to dislike them long before that, around the time that in conversation with such a driver he shared this piece of motoring wisdom: "A car is a car as long as it gets you from B to W, via M."

What a twit.

Bob Marley and the monuments of the people

A STATUE of Bob Marley has been unveiled in a small Serbian village this week. You might ask why: as a token of peace, obviously.

There is a bit of a tradition around those parts in putting up memorials to celebrities who have no connection with the area. Another Serbian village recently erected a statue of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky, apparently in a bid to shake off a jinx after a series of floods and landslides, and a third immortalised Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller. Meanwhile, Mostar in Bosnia has one of Bruce Lee.

We might snigger at these seemingly random choices to fill plinths left empty by the end of communism but may I remind you that until recently, Scotland had a statue of Mel Gibson at the foot of the Wallace Monument.

It has been removed now, I presume by popular request, but if the tourist board is looking for a replacement, I reckon Bob Marley would be as good as any.