The Despite and the Whinge words, and Jesus can they whinge.

Posted by Pointman on November 19, 2016 · 10 Comments 

Okay everyone, settle down, especially you bunch of Yanks at the back of the class. You’re looking too bloody smug and happy these last few days, and I’m afraid I’m that little dark cloud moving into position who’s going to be raining all over your parade. It’s best if you run away now – right now.

Loulou-Belle, stop doing that thing to Dwayne, put him down, you don’t know where he’s been, which in a curious way I do because of those embarrassing parent-teacher thingies nobody in their right mind ever wants to go to, most specially parents and teachers. Everybody dreads the bloody things, and nobody ever lets you weasel out of them either.

There is a unique and I sincerely hope dreadful, painful or least uncomfortable corner of hell reserved for the person who invented parent-teacher evenings. You know this as you sit with your best attempt at feigning nonchalance on a chair specifically designed for a seven year old and your knees rubbing up against your ears as you do the noddies with some teacher whom you realise doesn’t have the first damn clue anyway.

Acting on that information you’re not allowed to talk about, I therefore wouldn’t be doing anything intimate with Dwayne unless I was wearing a hazmat suit and he was triple condomed immediately after being chemically coshed, and I’d be personally checking he’d have had enough of a dose to take down your average rhino.

Seriously, take your tongue out of him, you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you girl.

Anyway, we all make these bad life choices and getting back on topic, I going to talk about two words which you’ll grow to hate in the coming months, but forewarned is forearmed as they say, and watching Dwayne getting hands on down and dirty with Loulou-Belle, I’d say he knows more about four arms than your average octopus, or perhaps in his case that should be arachnid.

The distinction is lost on them, but you’ve long ago abandoned explaining such niceties of the English language. I’d say casting pearls before swine, but after a few conversations with them, I’ve a sneaking suspicion of where the pearls would end up with that lot.

I wish to talk about “despite” and “whinge”, both of which words I’m fairly sure the Antipodean readership are cogniscant of, if only because of a certain whingeing bunch of imports they’ve had to put up with over the years, but the latter term might not be in common parlance in Clay county Missouri. Some interesting people came from there as it happens, but that’s some really interesting stuff for another day.

Churchill said that Britain and America were two great nations separated by a common language. Mistaking a warning sign about walking on pavements could get you killed in America and at some point explaining why queue is a reasonable spelling to a foreigner, you begin to realise there is no valid defence of on God’s good green Earth for such an abomination.

Whingeing is someone complaining about something. The particular thing whatever it is, you listen to the first time around, and if you’re a decent Christian soul, the next time or two, or four or six or eight if you really are pushing out the boat. When it gets to double digits, you get well into the who gives a damn zone but that’s not going to stop them. No Siree Bob, the full-frontal whinge is full on, right in your face and all its aerials are pointing directly at your sorry butt.

There is simply no escape.

They just go on, and on, and on. There’s no bloody stopping them. It’s like that Duracell rabbit advert. Your hand moves, propelled by forces you never knew hands had. Armies, sleeves, Chinese generals, know what I mean Guv? They’re reaching for a gun you might or might not have. Maybe a knife, or a stone, or the fibula bit of some long vanquished foe you keep around for old times’ sake, and you can use to beat them to death with.

Nobody will blame you.

Indeed, they’ll all be rather circumspect and happen to look the other way as you jam the bent over double corpse into your wheelie bin at about eight o’clock at night.

You know in the end, all sanity will be driven from you and listening to someone bitching on and on constantly about something which cannot be changed, raises the blood-crazed madness in you, and Loulou-Belle starts giving you the eye, and then you know you’re truly a lost soul and there is no hope, because the mainstream media come in with the killer punch of the despite word.

The “despite” word is a complete bastard. It really is.

Like everyone else on this aircraft carrier off the coast of western Europe, I’m totally sick and tired of despite. Please God, can someone kill that word. Take it away. Help me Jesus, help me. I can’t take anudda despite. Just remove it from the OED. Every damn bit of news we’ve had for months begins with “despite Brexit”, just add the trailing comma. It works either way, by the way, prefix it with a comma and it works just as good, if not gooder.

Let’s us do the despite fandango. Despite Brexit, unemployment has reached record lows. That was wot we call the prefix, but let’s shuffle to the postfix variation thereof. The footsie 100 has reached a record high, despite Brexit. Jesus Christ has landed on Earth, and although he’s finally been forced into admitting to being a Christian and despite Brexit, we’re all going to have to go to Heaven. Okay, I’ll admit that example escaped the prefix, postfix example and I hadda wedge it into the middle of the sentence, but you get the idea here.

You norty norty people at the back of the class, you’re gonna get “despited” big time and I hope you’re totally bloody-well ashamed of yourself. Suddenly everybody wants to renegotiate NAFTA, despite Trump. Despite Trump, climate negotiators in Morocco are vowing to battle on valiantly, which means the whole thing is down the toilet. Putin wants to “normalise” relationships, despite Trump. Despite Trump, the sun has been rising with a certain boring regularity. I’ve just had to pay my utility bill, despite Trump. However, despite Trump, it didn’t go up from the last quarter, so there.

Despite what everybody thinks, and I may be going out on a limb with this one, but I think it’s a total bloody disgrace if you ask me, despite what everybody else bloody-well thinks, and despite Trump.

©Pointman

Related articles by Pointman:

An analysis of the Trump election victory.

The American election of 2016.

How to get run over by the Trump juggernaut.

The loss of faith in the political class.

Betrayal by those you once trusted.

Click for a list of other articles.

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