The word on the street

Days when ‘placenta’ banned on Kiwi TV soap Shorty Street.

Every now and then, says Shortland Street script editor Nick Malmholt, there is a word you simply can’t use. Use it and you’ll never eat lunch in this f***ing town again.

In the soap’s early days, it was the “p” word. That is “p” for placenta.

“Placenta” was famously cut from a birth scene on Shorty St before it even had the chance to scandalise the nation. It was banned by a TVNZ representative, said Maxine Fleming, a Shortland Street producer who was part of the original storylining team.

“And there were other examples of biological terms deemed unseemly for the time slot,” she said.

That tends not to be the case today, she said.

As New Zealand’s longest-running soap celebrates 25 years this week, rules around what is acceptable to say on television have relaxed.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has issued 24 decisions on complaints about Shortland Street and it has upheld four. Most related to sexual activity and/or violence.

None raised concerns specifically about language, according to a spokesperson for the watchdog.

Swearing has, however, been raised in other cases. In a decision last year about a 6pm news bulletin, the authority did not uphold a complaint about interviewees’ use of “piece of piss” and “s***”.

It said “the expressions reflected the interviewee’s choice of language to convey their response to the issues discussed”.

In contrast, in a 1996 decision, it considered a complaint about the use of the phrase “stop pissing around” during a promo for an episode of Goodnight Sweetheart at 7.05pm.

That complaint, which related to language used in fiction, rather than news, was upheld. The authority said the phrase was “not acceptable within the currently accepted language norms for all ages. It still has the potential to shock the listener.”

Last year the BSA did research with focus groups on public attitudes to standards of good taste and decency.

The research revealed a tolerance around swearing — but a “heightened sensitivity” to potentially racist or sexist content.

The BSA’s 2013 What Not to Swear research reveals that in 1999, 70 per cent of those surveyed found the F word “totally or fairly unacceptable” — and in 2013 50 per cent blanched at the word. However the C word is still considered unacceptable — 79 per cent found it offensive in 1999 compared with 70 per cent in 2013.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, “bugger” barely makes it to double figures on the register. Placenta, however, was nowhere to be seen.