Hi there! This is John Ray settling in to Scott's chair while he is away on vacation. I am sure we all wish him a fun and carefree time away so that he comes back refreshed and full of energy for the fray against the idiocies of the world. Scott suggested that I might offer a word of explanation about a big speech-correctness issue that has cropped up in Australia recently. Rather to the surprise of us Australians, it seems to have made the news worldwide. Here is part of the Yahoo News account of the matter.
"A ban by Australia's Parliament House on the term "mate," a popular colloquialism and symbol of egalitarianism, has been overturned following a barrage of protest. Security guards at Parliament House in Canberra had been directed Thursday to refer to people as sir and ma'am. The ban was imposed after the head of a government department complained about being called mate, local media reported. But a parliamentary circular issued Friday removed the directive warning staff not to use "mate" when dealing with the public or members of parliament, instead suggesting they use their judgment on when a more formal approach is required".
Outside Australia, however, very few people understood what this was all about. It goes back to the fact that the English-origin population of Australia almost all originated from regional England and the English working class. And in such circles -- particularly among working-class Londoners ("Cockneys") -- it is normal to address someone as "Mate" if you don't know his name. I remember when I was in London, if I bought a downmarket newspaper such as the "Sun" from the newspaper vendor, he would say "Ta, Mate" when I gave him the money. If however I bought a more upmarket newspaper such as the "Times", he would say "Ta, Guv" when I gave him the money. Australians these days are mostly bourgeois but working-class traditions long ago became national traditions. So a custom that is class-based in England is universally respected in Australia, though being still to a degree class-based here. So an attempt to impose more formal manners on anybody was bound to meet with widespread condemnation -- which it did. Our conservative Prime Minister is as bourgeois as you can get but even he thought the ban was ridiculous -- which is why it got smartly reversed.
