A teacher in America has raised a minor storm in a teacup by banning from the classroom current hip and cool expressions (or whatever I should call them – I suspect ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ are from the wrong era). All very good, since what belongs in the schoolyard is out of place in the schoolroom. But not everyone agrees. This teacher stirred up a hornet’s nest by printing a list of 32 expressions that are prohibited in class. The anonymous teacher warned students that if they are caught using any of the listed phrases they would have to write a short essay ‘explaining why you chose to use these words in an academic setting to express yourselves’. The full list was recently shared on X (Twitter) and includes phrases such as ‘you ate that up’ (i.e. were completely successful); ‘that’s cap’ (fake or dishonest), and ‘it’s giving’ (meaning it provokes a reaction). Some of the phrases are just weird: ‘ooh-wee, skee-yee,’ ‘in the cut with my twin’ and ‘gyat’. The teacher explained that there are many ways for a person to express themselves without using slang: ‘The gibberish some of you choose to use is improper English and sometimes inappropriate for an academic setting.’ All of which makes sense to us – but not to everyone. The list has been viewed more than 33.7 million times and has racked up more than 4,000 comments and divided social media users. Multiple users claimed the teacher was on a ‘power trip’ when writing this list. One accused the educator of not valuing the language of the students and being ‘more concerned with compliance’ than learning about the students’ identities. (Which just shows you what half-wits some of these people are – the teacher is not there to ‘learn’ but to ‘teach’!) However, encouragingly a whole bunch of people came to the defence of the teacher. One wrote: ‘Being able to talk with and without slang and adapt to whatever surroundings you’re in is important.’ Another made the point more bluntly: ‘Just ask yourself how you would feel if you were in court, with your life in the hands of a judge and jury and your lawyer used these words and phrases!’ Another pointed out the obvious – that many children need to learn when it is appropriate to use this kind of language and when not: ‘That teacher is trying to help that class. Communication skills are important in life.’ Exactly! Enough said.

‘A gob on a stick’ is a strange bit of British slang I hadn’t come across until recently. It’s a way of describing someone who talks a lot, using ‘gob’ to mean ‘mouth’ (‘gob on a stick’ equals ‘mouth on a stick’). Mind you, as schoolkids in Australia we knew the word ‘gob’ to mean the phlegm that kids spit from their mouths. But the two uses are related. When ‘gob’ first turned up (around 1382) it meant ‘a mass, lump, or heap’ (OED). And I seem to remember as a kid this was one way of saying that we had a lot of something: ‘I’ve got gobs of it!’ From this it came to mean ‘A lump of a viscous or slimy substance, especially phlegm’ (yes, this is a rather icky subject, but stick with me, it gets interesting). By 1568 ‘gob’ was being used to mean ‘the mouth.’ In the 20th century this gave us such expressions as ‘gob-smacked’ (as surprising as a smack in the mouth). And now, from the 1990s, this new one: ‘gob on a stick’. Although the expression can be negative when used for a talkative person, it’s often used in a humorous, self-deprecating manner by broadcasters speaking of themselves. Terry Wogan once described himself by saying: ‘I’m only a gob on a stick.’ But this has political potential. Think of those politicians who talk a big game (in fact, who never shut up) but who do nothing. Such a politician is just ‘a gob on a stick’. Like it?