Bastard

 April 18 Word of the Day: Bastard

 

Read today ‘Bastards and Buggers’, an article by Simon Musgrave and Kate Burridge (2014), leading with this epigraph: “Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?” Their footnote reads: “Allegedly uttered by Australian cricket captain Bill Woodfull during the Bodyline series of 1932-3 in response to the English captain Douglas Jardine’s complaint that one of the Australian players had called him a bastard.” Jardine directed his bowlers to aim at the bodies of the batsmen in order to limit the Australians’ prodigious scoring. It was Woodfull who famously (not just allegedly) said, “There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket and the other is not.” The first use of ‘bastard’ in his interrogation calls his team mates to attention; it is an almost endearing if blokey way of treating the team as equal before the law. His second ‘bastard’ refers objectively to the haplessly pompous Jardine, for whom the epithet applies even if Woodfull is questioning the Englishman’s legitimacy as a sportsmanlike sportsman, not the legitimacy of his birth. The third ‘bastard’ has none of the foregoing tone of positive jocular bonhomie, its negative meaning being very precisely what got up Jardine’s nostril: he is a reprehensible bully. Gerald Murnane, the urbane Victorian novelist, has put in print that his sons are quote “bastards” unquote. While it might be possible to believe he uses this word simultaneously for all the meanings spelled out so far, the humour of this unpleasant accusation balances on the question of Murnane’s knowledge of the patrimony of his own family. Elsewhere in his writing it is apparent the author has a finely tuned sense of irony and double entendre, a perverse wit when it comes to etymology. While no reader for a moment would conclude that Murnane’s sons are bastards, we have his word for it that they are. Don Chipp, the flinty Victorian politician, knew a bastard when he saw one, for example the well-born son of the squattocracy, Malcolm Fraser. Such was his dislike for Fraser and other former Liberal Party colleagues he formed a new party, with a primary objective that was not so much a policy as a moral imperative: Keep the bastards honest. Such was Fraser’s notoriety during the Dismissal (1975) and afterwards as Prime Minister that many Australians referred to him as the Big Bastard. Unlike Douglas Jardine, Fraser took some pride (allegedly) in this sobriquet, as it denoted respect for his legend as a ruthless operator, manipulative backstabber, and aloof leader. Depending on who was using the term, an insult could become an expression of admiration or grudging respect.