Wazz

 April 11 Word of the Day: Wazz

 

Listening to an acceptance speech by my brother Mick to a mixed audience in a St Kilda venue, an unknown word (unknown to me) emerged from the high talk. Concerned (if that’s the word) that some attendees may not be interested in everything he had to say, Mick seemed not to care if the disinterested chose at some stage to go have a wazz. Being myself an Australian of a certain age and travel experience, this wazz word was way out of orbit. Furthermore, my Californian spellchecker underlines wazz with a red squiggle.

 But it’s not an error, not West Coast, and is related to the gravitational orbit of the Earth, being British slang (apparently) for urinate. The venue, as is law, had some excellent facilities available for this natural function. Online generally keeps the definition to the straight and narrow, though wazz hazz been known to refer to other bodily functions from time to time. The OED claims that its first recorded use is in 1984. It claims, in its celebrated formal manner, that there are fewer than 0.01 occurrences of wazz per million words in modern written English. Though presumably that figure is higher in spoken English, even if a novelty to a resident Australian. Popular awareness was raised by its occasional use in Absolutely Fabulous.  

 As inferred earlier, wazz rhymes with jazz. This puts us in mind of the world of music, which is why we were all there in St Kilda on a drizzly March evening in the first place. The line caused me to wonder if it was part of Mick’s armoury, or perhaps that’s battery, of rebukes for hecklers at British concerts who want more of the fast songs and less of the slow, lilting ballads. Wazz started life as a verb, morphing into a noun some ten years later (1994), the form of speech used during the speech. Although much of the literature claims that the word is vulgar, it is a mild and even slightly comic nonsense word compared with other synonyms for piss.

 In the context it all made sense. Spritzes fizzed, whiskies hit and ales palely flowed as the audience leaned into the speeches ahead of a promised bracket of chansons. Only the rare punter made a beeline for the conveniences, or wazeria, as those assembled hung on every word. Indeed, for a while there about the only person not intoxicated was the one giving the acceptance speech.