The Voice (Botswana)

SQUEAKY BUM TIME

- NEGATIVE: ‘parking the bus.’

Thanks to profession­al football, the Oxford English Dictionary has become a better read.

I say that because this month, the term I’ve used for my headline and the phrase under the cartoon have been added to the more than 290,500 entries in that English language guide book. I didn’t count them, I took Wikipedia’s word for it, but before the computer age, I picked up a dictionary pretty much every day to look up spellings and meanings for my work… and just for the fun of it.

I’ve mentioned dictionari­es because I want to talk about a word I looked-up 30 years ago when it came into common use, and then again today when I wanted to clarify its meaning. But, first, I’ll share the definition­s of those newly recognised phrases.

‘Squeaky bum time’ is the final stage of a competitio­n when the team that is winning and their supporters get increasing­ly worried the other team might score. Manchester United Manager, Alex Ferguson, first used it in 2003 and, reportedly, he was referring to the noises nervous fans make with their bums as they squirm in their plastic stadium seats.

‘Parking the bus’, meanwhile, was coined the next year by then Chelsea Manager, Jose Mourinho, and it refers to a team defending without trying to attack, with all the players staying deep inside their own half of the pitch. It’s a negative term, but that’s the way Mourinho’s teams usually play.

Anyway, the word I didn’t know 30 years ago is ‘proactive.’ It’s a positive term and I remembered it as the opposite of ‘reactive.’ But I’m mentioning it now because I realised this morning I wouldn’t have been able to be proactive if I hadn’t first given myself time to react. Here’s what happened:

When I got up this morning, I knew I would have to get stuck into writing this column because yesterday’s efforts ended with ‘select all’ and ‘delete’. I was starting from scratch, but the sun was shining, so I decided to varnish a craft project instead. It wasn’t an urgent job, but that kind of work can’t be done properly when it’s raining… and it rains a lot in England at this time of year, so it felt right to do it today. Also, while I worked, I had time to think.

And while I was thinking, I realised my actions were a bit like dropping other plans on short notice to weed or plant crops when the weather and soil conditions become favourable. Those decisions make the work easier, more effective and more enjoyable. And I really did enjoy sanding, varnishing and thinking while being outside in the sunshine.

Then when I came back to the office and opened the dictionary, I discovered, ‘proactive’ is not, in fact, the opposite of ‘reactive’. It means, “actively initiating change in anticipati­on of future developmen­ts instead of merely reacting to events as they occur.” So, according to the book, I wasn’t just finding another excuse to put off my writing when I chose to work outside. I was being proactive.

Yeah, I like dictionari­es. They are useful and they can be fun. And sometimes they even help me justify doing exactly what I want to do.

 ?? ??
 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Botswana