Romps, Tots and Boffins

by Robert Hutton

  fashionista • we’ve run out of words to describe her.

  fierce shoulders • scary and a bit unpleasant.

  flaunted her curves • look how fat she’s got.

  had the fashion world divided • everyone hates it but no one is willing to stick their neck out and print it.

  jean • all clothing is referred to in the singular. So a jean is a casual ‘trouser’, often ‘teamed’ with a ‘boot’.

  must-have • what this ‘shoe’ is when paired with that ‘sheer tight’.

  nude lip • the alternative to a ‘gloss’ or ‘crimson’ lip.

  on trend • a fashionista has hit the sweet spot.

  rocking a look • we need another way to say ‘wearing’, because we’ve already used that 300 times this issue. Or try ‘sporting’.

  statement clothes • they’re disgusting but by an advertiser whom we can’t slate.

  style icon • no idea what her job is but she takes a good picture.

  subverting • often done ‘cleverly’ or ‘brilliantly’, the act of wearing completely the wrong clothes to an event.

  taking a risk • wearing something that shows off an inappropriate amount of flesh.

  unflattering • terrific! She looks chubby in this one.

  HOW WE USED TO LIVE

  One interesting feature of journalese is the number of expressions that are now at least 50 years out of date. Is anyone under 40 helped by the image of a footballer making a slide-rule pass? Will readers still gasp with envy when told that a pop star on tour ‘boarded a jet’? You might see this as evidence that newspaper language has fallen behind the times, but at peril to my own life and those of the people I love, I can reveal here the far more sinister truth. There exists a secret society of sub-editors, the League of the Twitching Beard, who are sworn to maintain the illusion nothing in Britain has changed since 1958.* By day, they sit quietly at terminals updating the various supplements that are ready to run when members of the Royal Family die. But after the reporters have gone home, they roam the newsroom, combing through copy and inserting words so archaic that the first Google result for them is a definition.

  august publication • one that’s about to announce that it’s shutting up shop after 200 years.

  bellwether • only seen in politics stories, it refers to an electoral district that’s a day trip from London, where we’ve vox-popped four people in a pub for a feature on the prime minister’s worst week.

  blackboards • try telling children that these things were once a feature of every classroom, and they just laugh unbelievingly.

  calumny • typically a ‘vile’ one, possibly against a young lady’s honour. The only possible response is a duel.

  carbon copy • imagine, the power to make two or even three copies of every document that comes out of your typewriter! Witchcraft? No – science!

  denizens • the writer has an unfinished thesis on James Joyce at home, you know.

  doff • the opposite of don.

  don • how we get dressed, here in the 15th century.

  eschew • a kind of nut, I think.

  fillip • what one needs at one’s ‘nadir’.

  flat-screen colour TV • or, ‘a TV’, as they’re now known. But to certain newspapers, still an item of such unimaginable futuristic luxury that their presence is worth noting, especially in prisons, where ideally lags would be forced to watch Britain’s Got Talent on black-and-white boxes.

  frogman • usually a police frogman, searching a lake for a ‘missing beauty’.

  furore • put readers on edge for the rest of the day as they wonder how to pronounce a word they’ve only ever seen written down.

  gymslip mum • doubtless led astray by a ‘sex fiend’.

  hostelry • where one might hope to sip a tankard of ale.

  imbroglio • pretty sure this one only makes it into copy for a bet.

  imported car • what the rich and famous drive to their jets.

  jet • how the impossibly wealthy get around the globe.

  moribund • this one is at the point of death.

  mortar board • see blackboards.

  panjandrums • an invented phrase from 1755. Which should be a clue about whether to use it.

  scion • now only used of Nat Rothschild.

  serried • what ranks of things always are.

  skulduggery • I might let this one slide, because I like it, and unusually it sounds like its meaning.

  slide-rule pass • the way he kicked the ball evoked nothing so much as a device printed with logarithmic scales and widely used for multiplication and division in the days before pocket calculators.

  Svengali • reference to an 1894 novel and a 1931 film. Now always preceded by ‘pop’, and followed by ‘Simon Cowell’. It means, to those to whom it means anything, ‘someone like Simon Cowell’.

  timepiece • there really are no shorter words for those things you use to tell the time.

  townsfolk • typically, townsfolk are worried about what the Count is doing to his visitors up in the castle.

  turn on a sixpence • was a sixpence much smaller than the other coins they abolished before I was born?

  vaunted • whatever it is, if it’s done, it’s ‘much’ done.

  Walter Mitty • help readers unable to imagine what a ‘fantasist’ might be with this allusion to a 1942 short story.

  woe • ‘for never was there a tale of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo,’ wrote Shakespeare. Though he probably hadn’t heard this one: ‘Major Roadworks In Bedford Cause Parking Woe.’

  * Look out for my thriller, The Drop Intro Code, at the top of the New York Times bestseller list soon.

  IN THE BEDROOM

  The trick with writing about sex for a family newspaper is to report one or two memorable details – ‘FIVE TIMES A NIGHT’ – without giving so much information you start to sound like the Penthouse Readers’ Letters section. The safest course is to spend more time describing the location than you do the act. If you can hear the Benny Hill theme tune in your head as you type, you’re getting it about right.

  beau • a posh girl’s posh boyfriend. Or, used ironically, a posh girl’s bit of rough.

  bed • what love rats and lotharios do to their conquests.

  bonk • on first reference.

  clinch • usually ‘steamy’. Means anything from a hug to a bonk.

  come-hither eyes • how ‘man-eaters’ lure their conquests in.

  courtship • this is not dating, this is not going out or seeing each other. These trips to the cinema are something out of Jane Austen.

  lothario • a love rat that we like.* Like a love rat, always a man. ‘Serial Lothario’, as seen in the Daily Mail, is unnecessary. If a woman, try ‘man-eater’.

  love child • the inevitable result of all that bedding and romping.

  love rat • one who has ‘two-timed’ a partner. Almost always a man. If he’s a celebrity, his exploits should be recounted with a slight air of admiration, and he should be described near the start as a ‘bad boy’. Also used of adulterous politicians and men on welfare who’ve fathered six children by five women, though without the warmth. If writing about a woman, try ‘marriage wrecker’.

  lovelorn • someone who has recently been through a split.

  ménage à trois • The Guardian is following up yesterday’s Sun splash about a ‘threesome’.

  night of shame • usually involves a vice girl. Turn to pages 4 and 5 for 1,200 more mildly titillating words.

  nookie • on second reference.

  orgy • a game for four or more players. A ‘threesome’ would also qualify if it was filmed.

  paramour • posh girl’s bit on the side.

  privates • if we have to, this is how we refer to his ‘crown jewels’.

  raunchy • pornography of which we approve.

  reunion • how a couple get back together after a split.

  romp • preceded by ‘sex
’, or if we’re feeling sentimental, ‘love’.*

  sex act • how newspapers always refer to oral sex.

  sex session • one or more bonks and sex acts. If it took more than an hour, consider ‘marathon sex session’.

  stepping out • dating for posh kids.

  suitor • one who woos, typically in a courtship.

  three-in-a-bed • always a romp. The mental image we’re trying to create for our reader is himself (and in these stories it’s a he) and two supermodels. On no account should we suggest that maths allows other possible combinations.

  tryst • on third reference.

  vice girl • a prostitute, but, you know, a sexy one.

  wed • the result of all that wooing.

  woo • what suitors do.

  * Fantastic use by the Wisconsin website faced with the story of a teenager caught shoplifting 10 items including ‘Trojan vibrating rings, Trojan sensitive condoms, KY warming liquid and two candles’. Their headline: ‘14-Year-Old Lothario “Had Quite An Evening Planned,” Police Muse’.

  * It’s not clear what distinguishes a sex romp from normal sex. I think we can agree though that if, as the Daily Record once did, you reveal in the fifth paragraph that ‘it only lasted a couple of minutes’ and ‘was described as “a kiss and a cuddle”’, you should probably take ‘romp’ out of the headline.

  JOURNALESE FEAR SCALE

  Just as sailors use the standard Beaufort scale for wind, newspapers use the Journalese Scale for Fear, to ensure that reporting of anxiety is done consistently across mediums.

  Force 0: calm • fear has abated, but will be back later, e.g. ‘North Korean Border Calm’.

  Force 1: doubts • fear has been spotted on the horizon but has yet to arrive.

  Force 2: concern • fears are beginning to take shape but they’re still a long way off.

  Force 3: fright • something briefly alarming happened but it was all right and no one was even scratched.

  Force 4: scare • a fright that lasted more than an hour.

  Force 5: alarm • scare that was ongoing as we went to press.

  Force 6: fears • we can’t find anyone who’ll put their name to it, or say exactly what the fears are, but we’ve been writing this story for three hours now, and we think you damn well should be scared. Typically, fears grow.

  Force 7: fear • someone has gone on the record, enabling us to nail down what the fear is.

  Force 8: panic • the response to our earlier story about fears has been better than we could have dreamed.

  Force 9: horror • there was at least one fatality, and the emergency services still haven’t found all the bits.

  Force 10: terror • a gun was involved. If a local paper, it was a replica.*

  * Unless the local paper is from south London or certain parts of Manchester.

  24-HOUR PARTY PEOPLE

  One of the great skills in journalism is to see the surprise in something that to others is perfectly routine. Many stories come from events that seem unremarkable to the participants. In some branches of reporting, this skill has to be very highly developed. Royal correspondents have in recent years managed to produce sustained shock that a couple who had been together for eight years were getting married, that they became pregnant a year later, and that a soldier in a war had shot at the enemy.

  Political journalists don’t have to scale these heights, but they do have to affect wonder that for instance, the clever, opinionated people who make it to the top of political parties are ambitious, or disagree about policy. A ritual dance develops, where politicians in interviews attempt not to say anything interesting about their ambitions or views, and reporters note the slightest misstep. In the British government, the stakes are raised by the convention of collective responsibility, which requires all ministers to agree with all the policies of their colleagues. This rule developed in the 18th century as a way of stopping the king from playing ministers off against each other, but is now about presenting a united front to the press. These days, the monarch is just about the only person in the country to whom a prime minister can confide their real thoughts about policy.

  aftermath • what there is after a party is trounced at the polls. This is typically where the inquest takes place.

  back foot • what the prime minister is on after his worst week.

  back office • the bit of an organisation that no one in management, government or journalism understands, and which they therefore agree can be abolished without any damage.*

  big beast • a backbencher of whom your mum has heard.

  bloody nose • what the spokesman who is sent out to face the press in the aftermath will say the voters gave his party.

  chauffeur-driven limo • what government ministers are ‘ferried about’ in. (Note: the editor has a company car with a driver. This is not the same thing at all.)

  collision course • what government departments that differ on any issue are always on.

  cosy elite • what they have walking the ‘corridors of power’ down in Westminster. Quite different from the rich tapestry of humanity you see in the newsroom.

  crucial test • what this local election is for the government.

  crunch vote • we have no idea which way this one will go.

  cut off from reality • what politicians are. The editor’s PA heard someone say so while she was dropping off his dry cleaning.

  drubbing • how everyone except the recipient will describe the bloody nose.

  flesh out • to repeat, in a speech, the existing policy, with one new detail.

  former strongholds • where the party is about to be trounced.

  frontline services • the good bit of any organisation, which should be ringfenced from swingeing cuts, unlike the back office.

  grandee • they’re past it, but we want to quote them anyway.

  greybeards • what the Labour Party has instead of grandees.

  grim night • what a political party had at the polls.

  hatched • what happens to plots.

  head to the polls • the means by which people choose their governments.

  high-stakes diplomatic gamble • typically a sign that crisis talks are moving to their final phase, or that deadline is approaching and we don’t know what’s going on.

  intervention • someone famous has written a piece for us on an issue of the day.

  inquest • the process by which everyone involved in the trouncing will conclude that it shows what they already thought.

  kebabbed • after they locked horns, the interviewer did better out of the exchange than the politician.*

  keynote • what all speeches are.

  lobbying • the way powerful companies spend money to try to persuade government to change policy. Not to be confused with the vital campaigning work of newspapers.

  locked horns • a reporter asked a politician some questions.

  long-anticipated • what reshuffles are.

  lurch to the left/drift to the right • political scientists have confirmed that parties can only move back towards their base at one of two speeds: a lurch or a drift.

  mandarins • senior civil servants blocking something we support.

  mired in controversy • the state in which prime ministers find themselves during foreign trips, due to the travelling pack’s lack of interest in whatever Important Matter the PM is discussing, relative to the domestic problems the PM doesn’t want to discuss.

  on manoeuvres • someone is about to put down a marker.

  politicians queued up to attack • we did a ring-round, and got three.

  put down a marker • what a politician does in a wide-ranging speech.

  ringfence • the only way to keep money safe.

  root and branch reform • sacking people from the back office. While protecting frontline services, obviously.

  senior backbenchers • backbenchers who returned our calls. If this simply sounds implausible (because, say, they were
only elected last week), try ‘rising star’.

  shock new poll • finally, the numbers have come back in a way that supports our prejudices.

  Sir Humphrey • Yes, Minister may have been the finest political sitcom ever made, but it went off the air 25 years ago.* The under-40s demand a new nickname for senior civil servants.

  slapdown • a member of the Cabinet that we like has disagreed with a member of the Cabinet that we don’t like.

  snapshot • what this poll is only.

  soundings • what politicians take after they put down a marker.

  stalking horse • he may think he’s a serious challenger for the leadership, but we know better.

  strategists • it suits both politicians and correspondents to report that parties have cunning plans to appeal to voters, and that the aides who try to spin them are in fact electoral masterminds.

  stubby pencil • what voters use, after they head to the polls, to cause an upset. But not to put down a marker.

  swathes • the collective noun for the seats a party just lost.

  swingeing • cuts in something we like. These are not just cuts, they’re swingeing cuts.

  swivel-eyed • a Conservative MP who doesn’t merely wish for a more distant relationship between Britain and Europe, but could probably be persuaded to vote for a bombing raid on Berlin.

  throw their hat in the ring • what someone does in a wide-ranging speech.

  top-of-the-range • anything bought by the taxpayer for the use of a politician.

  trounced • what happened to a party at the polls.

  tsars • the public sector’s answer to a chief. Like their Russian namesakes, they’re nominally in charge of things they don’t really control (drugs, ‘antisocial behaviour’) and their ultimate fate is likely to be a firing squad and burial in quicklime.

  union baron • the elected leader of a trade union. If he’s popular with his members, he may also be described as a ‘firebrand’.

  union paymaster • a union baron, as he’s referred to in pieces about Labour Party policy decisions.