The hippo, the pumpkin and the haggis

From the moment Thailand’s celebrity pygmy hippo, Moo Deng predicted Donald Trump would triumph in the US election it was all over for the Democrats and Kamala Harris. Their fate had been sealed by the taste buds of the megastar mammal from Chon Buri.
For those who missed this portentous moment, it took place at Khao Kheow Open Zoo on the eve of the election. When given the choice of two pumpkin halves stuffed with fruit and veg the young pygmy hippo opted for the one with Mr Trump’s name on it, tucking into it with considerable enthusiasm. Moo Deng’s mum, Jonah had to settle for the Harris pumpkin.
A zookeeper later reportedly admitted that the Trump pumpkin had more generous slices of tasty fruit which might have influenced the baby hippo’s decision.
Moo Deng wasn’t the only hippopotamus making news this week. Edinburgh Zoo announced the birth of their own pygmy hippo which they named Haggis after Scotland’s national dish. For those unfamiliar with haggis, it is a pudding composed of the liver, heart and lungs of a sheep, mixed with mutton or beef suet with oatmeal, onion and spices. It might not sound very appealing but is actually quite tasty and highly revered in Scotland.
At every Burns supper the Robert Burns poem Address to a Haggis is read out. Its opening lines (best spoken in a Scottish accent) are “Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain of the Puddin’-race!” The word “sonsie” incidentally means lucky. If you wish to know more about haggis please consult a Scot and not this ill-informed Sassenach.
Chinese tour guides refer to the haggis as “Baa-Baa Pudding” which actually is not a bad translation. More worryingly, according to a recent Scottish survey quite a few American tourists are under the impression that haggis is some kind of furry marsupial.
This myth has been perpetuated by folklore concerning the “Wild Haggis”, a fictional creature said to have legs of different length and believed to roam the Scottish highlands. Tourists are most likely to spot them after a few too many shots of the local whisky.
An Australian friend recalls taking a taxi in Bangkok some years ago and the driver immediately asking him what he thought about donuts. He was a bit puzzled by the question but the cabbie seemed to be obsessed by the word “donut” which he kept repeating. It happened to be just after a previous US election and it finally dawned on the Aussie that the cabbie was actually talking about Donald Trump, or “Donut” as he is known amongst Bangkok’s taxi community.
So even US presidents are not immune from the joy foreigners experience in Thailand of having their first name pronounced in a slightly different way than they are used to. Being called by your first name is a lovely custom and I quickly adapted to hearing “Mr Loger” or variations on that. It seemed so pleasantly informal. It is probably just as well first names are used here as most Thais have a real struggle with my surname. About the nearest anyone gets is “Mr Crochety” which is far too accurate for my liking.
Collins Dictionary has come out with the top ten words of the year, none of which are particularly inspiring. Topping the list is “brat” which Collins defines as someone with a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude.” It also happens to be the title of the latest album by UK singer Charli XCX and said to be very trendy.
Being an old fashioned geezer, for me brat will always continue to mean a badly behaved child and nothing else.
Among the other words listed by Collins are “delulu”, meaning “to have unrealistic expectations” and “looksmaxxing” a most unattractive word referring to “attempting to maximize one’s attractiveness”. I’m definitely beginning to worry about the current direction of the English language.
It ws Rudyard Kipling who observed “words are the most powerful drug used by mankind”. However, one suspects he would not have been too impressed by “looksmaxxing”.
You have to admire anyone who learns English as a second language as there are so many ridiculous words that can be quite confusing. I recall a Thai colleague at the Bangkok Post some years ago asking me the meaning of “codswallop” and did it have anything to do with fish. I hadn’t a clue.
After diligent research the best explanation was that a 19th century gentleman named Hiram Codd invented a special type of bottle which often contained beer. In those days the slang for beer was “wallop”. Apparently the beer in Mr Codd’s bottles always seemed extremely weak. So “codswallop:” became a derogatory term for beer that was not the real thing and therefore was “nonsense”.
There are dozens of words in the English language meaning “nonsense”, many of them quite vulgar. I think my favourite is “balderdash” as it has a certain emphatic nature about it. Apparently in the old days it referred to an unappealing mixture of alcoholic drinks.
However there are many more words from which to choose. Here are just a few: bunkum, claptrap, drivel, gibberish, hogwash, mumbo jumbo, piffle, poppycock, prattle, tosh, tripe and twaddle. Of course there are plenty more and no doubt readers have their own favourites.
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