Editorial: Cuss and tell

The job of a statesman is rendered doubly hard on account of the high standards of political correctness that is expected from members of the polity. It’s a lesson learnt the hard way, at least for Kamala Harris, the US Vice President, who recently dropped an F-bomb while addressing young Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander people at a leadership summit. Her inadvertent slip of the expletive prompted applause from her young audience, most of whom could have possibly related to the angst that might have inspired the politician’s faux pas, not to mention, sprinkled some much needed street cred on Harris.

While the Vice President emerged unscathed from that episode, it also prompted a throwback of sorts, to moments when powerful heads of state could not quite put a leash on their tongues. Two years ago, US President Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic cursing a Fox News reporter at a White House event after the journalist shouted a question about the impact of rising inflation on the congressional elections. Biden, who chose to respond with sarcasm, was oblivious to the fact that his mic was still on when he said, “What a stupid son of a b****.” An hour later, the President called up the correspondent and sheepishly admitted, “It’s nothing personal, pal.”

It might not have been personal, but the bane of hot mics is something whose impact has been felt across the Pacific as well. Back in 2022 again, former New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern was responding to a barrage of questions from right-wing ACT party leader David Seymour, who relentlessly grilled her on various issues including inflation and immigration. An understandably perturbed Ardern took her seat and muttered under her breath, “Such an arrogant p****.” The hot mic caught both Ardern’s swearing as well as the Deputy PM’s reply, “He is.” Ardern later apologised to the leader, who graciously accepted the apology and retorted, “It’s water off a duck’s back.”

But it’s not just politicians who have suffered a slip of tongue on account of cuss words. A business reporter in New Delhi found himself in a sticky situation while reporting on the Patanjali case in the Supreme Court. A minor grammatical error led to the reporter dropping a salty Hindi expletive, on live TV. Nevertheless, he had the unconditional support of thousands of netizens who empathised with the scribe, who they reasoned was reeling from the impact of an unforgiving summer. Some of the cheekier comments on Twitter included, “Tell me you are from New Delhi, without telling me you are from New Delhi.”

Vernacular epithets have made their way into the national pastime too. The ludicrous Monkeygate scandal from 2008 involved an episode of slagging at the Sydney Test match between India and Australia. Harbhajan Singh hurled a regional expletive at the late Andrew Symonds, who mistook Singh’s provocation for a racial slur i.e. monkey. The incident turned out to be one of the ugliest spats in the history of Indian cricket, which compelled the Boards to crack the whip on slagging. An interesting counterpoint to the use of cuss words in sports was depicted in the spectacular tennis drama Challengers, released last month. The Zendaya-starrer features a line umpire warning a foul-mouthed player, “Code violation, audible obscenity.” Therein lies the key to cussing — making it inaudible, and imperceptible.