We’re reduced to a black and white world of yummy or yuck

ONE OF the horrible words that has sneaked into the adult English language is “yummy”. This is a word that should be reserved for conversations with babies. It describes the taste of pureed broccoli or cold minced spinach.

“Here you are, Little Diddum-pie, just one more spoonful of this yummy broccoli and then you can have some yummy peach mush.”

You’ll find it printed on the box of breakfast cereal and the reduced-size chocolate bar – “Yummy new flavour!”

The magazine food critic says the duck l’orange was “yummy”.

Yummy is the infant equivalent of the adult word “nice”. The words are used for anything even vaguely pleasant.

In adult circles we also tend to describe everything from a piece of chocolate to a world cruise on the Queen Elizabeth as “nice”.

You spend two months building a new dining-room table and proudly invite the neighbours round to admire it. “So what do you think?” You ask. “Hey it’s nice.” “Would you like a cup of tea?” “Thanks, that would be nice.” “I baked these biscuits myself. “Do you like them?” “Yeah, they’re yummy.” “Have you met Charlie’s new girlfriend?” “Yeah she’s nice. “Her sister’s pretty yummy too.” Reducing the world to yummy and nice is like watching a movie in black and white.

An essential element – the colour spectrum – is missing.

What happened to delicious, gorgeous, adorable, tasty, pretty, beautiful or wonderful? I’ll tell you what happened. We became lazy and reduced everything to the black-and-white world of yummy or yuck.

We no longer have to think about what we say and our vocabularies have shrunk to no more than 36 words, seven of which are “like”.

“So did you like fly overseas in like the new Boeing? What was it like?” “Like nice, man.” “And the food like on board?” “Nah, like yuck, man. “But one of the cabin stewardesses was, like, quite yummy.”

Goo goo goo. Please don’t drool on your bib.

Last Laugh

The geography teacher asked little Jimmy: “What can you tell me about the Dead Sea?” “Nothing, Miss. “I didn’t even know it was ill.”