Sunday, 17 July 2016

What did you say?


I got this post off a Facebook page called UK Cop Humour. I like their page because it shows me a bit what life as a police officer is like these days: endless paperwork, abuse from members of the public and politicians who should know better, etc. A bit like being a teacher. What police officers make of having Theresa May as their prime minister I can only imagine, but I notice the Home Office used the Brexit fiasco to cover up the fact that this year police officers will be getting a 1% pay rise. I'm sure they're grateful. 

Our community in 1950s Govan had very little contact with the police. We weren't brought up to regard the police as our friends. There was a feeling that we policed our own community. I was too young to know what that meant, but I'm prepared to bet there was a fair amount of what you could call 'rough justice' handed out to thieves, wife beaters and the like. 

I am a totally law-abiding citizen. I have not knowingly broken a law in my life. My only contacts with the police have been (1) when my flat was broken into; (2) when I went to warn the police my neighbours and I were having a garden party (we had a neighbour who was likely to phone and complain about the noise); (3) when I was stopped (several times) when I was driving; and (4) when I had to go out with the police to rescue two French hitch-hikers who had been delivered by a kindly lorry driver to Bridgend - sadly, the wrong Bridgend, the one in Islay, not the one in Wales where there was a job waiting for them. 

Being a police officer - in fact, a member of any of the emergency services - is utterly thankless, so I keep on liking the posts of UK Cop Humour. I admire the solidarity people show on the page. 

Until the post at the top of this page appeared. I was astonished to discover that this post attracted the most outrageous comments. I would have said it was just a wee bit of fun and faintly amusing but it was described as 'chav.' It was dismissed as 'nonsense' and written in a 'sub-dialect.' (I don't think the good folk of Fife would be happy about that). Several people asked for translations. This went on for a couple of days, until I felt I had to comment. And my comment was along these lines:

I am expected to understand Estuary English, Cockney, Geordie, Scouse and all the other varieties of UK English I come across on radio and TV and in my dealings with people in call centres run by the AA, British Gas, etc. I can expect people to comment on my 'funny' accent but heaven forbid that I should say: You think my accent is funny? But I thought you had the accent! 

Really if people have difficulty reading this post by the Levenmouth police, it says a lot about them - their lack of understanding of the richness and variety of the languages spoken in these islands - and if they feel threatened (that's the impression I get) by the existence of other languages, then the UK is truly in a bad way. 

About 20 years ago, I was at Glasgow airport waiting to get the plane to Lewis. I'd bought a Guardian and was reading the letters page, where a man was raging about Welsh: the sooner this ridiculous language is wiped off the face of the earth the better, he wrote. He lived in Cornwall. What on earth could have happened to arouse this level of anger in a man who lived nowhere near Wales and could hardly, if at all, have been affected by the Welsh language? 

That was when I first realised the power of language. I've never forgotten the anger he felt. And never understood it. 

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