The Tribal Mind David Dale

The philosophy department of the University of Woolloomooloo PISSANT: There a word you dont hear much any more. Unlike pisspot, which you hear all the time. Well, I do, anyway. But I hadnt heard pissant for at least 15 years until last week, when Ross Garnaut, climate change adviser to the federal government, made this remark: I don't accept that my country is a pissant country. All the evidence is against it." It carried me back to the glory days of Paul Keating and Neville Wran, who slipped such ockerisms into the national debate smoothly and naturally (as opposed to Kevin Rudd, who just sounded bizarre when he talked about a fair shake of the sauce bottle, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and driving the porcelain bus). That inspired me to do a column on how we are losing our language; how Australians used to be more colourful conversationalists before television turned us into Americans (so blokes and sheilas became guys and chicks and hooroo became have a nice day); and how all this means our daily intercourse is less entertaining than in the linguistic golden age last century. Advertisement: Story continues below The linguistic golden age Photo: Andrew Taylor The trouble is that pissant turns out not to be an ockerism at all. The more I researched the word, the more it looked to be American. Back in the 1960s, US President Lyndon Johnson referred to Rosetta Stone Vietnam as that damn pissant little country. The name apparently comes from the smell of the nests of certain kinds of northern hemisphere wood ants. But even if we didnt invent it, we improved on it. Johnson was using the word as a synonym for trivial. Australia added connotations of cowardly, meanspirited and untrustworthy which seems to be the spirit in which Ross Garnaut was using it. We would be a pissant country if we reneged on our international obligations to cut pollution. Like so many aspects of our culture, we adopted and adapted a concept, and thus convinced ourselves that we own it. Apparently we also convinced the British. In the Monty Python sketch about the philosophy department at the University of Woolloomoloo (where, by a fortunate coincidence, all the lecturers are named Bruce), the philosophers discuss Australia talent for developing unusual expressions Philosopher 1: It hot enough to boil a monkey bum.8221 Philosopher 2: That a strange expression, Bruce.8221 Phil 1: Well Bruce, I heard the prime minister use it. It hot enough to boil a monkey bum in here, your majesty, he said, and she smiled quietly to herself.8221 Phil 2: She a good sheila Bruce. Not at all stuck up. (This was written 30 years before Kevin Rudd became prime minister) The philosophers then sing an anthem which includes the lines: Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar, who could think you under the table. The song author, Eric Idle, really meant pisspot or piss artist, but would have had trouble finding a name that rhymed with either of those terms. (To see the original sketch, click here. To sing along with the anthem, click here.) The sketch is predicated upon the reputation of Australians for public drunkenness -- another tradition that seems to have got lost between last century and this one. The Bureau of Statistics revealed last week that Australia beer consumption is at its lowest level in 60 years.

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