He struts across the crowded room, tight T-shirt encasing a broad chest and gym-hardened body, hair trimmed perfectly, a thick and pungent trail of testosterone, confidence and swagger in his wake. The only sign of nervousness? That square jaw. It looks just a little too clenched. And that vein near his temple ... is it faintly throbbing?
But no one really notices these things as he takes his place in front of the guests at this birthday celebration. This dude was made to be adored. Surely the speech that will spill past those brilliant white teeth and out through those plumpish red lips, well, it'll be perfect, won't it? Just like the rest of him.
He pauses. Takes a breath. And then sucks in a world of panic. "Well, I'd just like to say that ... umm ... aaah ... f---king ... umm... f---."
His eyes dart around the room, searching, almost pleading, for assistance. Not much help here. Everyone's eyes are lasering holes in the floor while they all ask the same thing.
Did he just say 'f---?'
It's not like most of us here don't use the magic word. We're only two hours into the evening and it has probably been uttered a few hundred times in conversations by young and old. We've already listened to two speeches where it was liberally sprinkled. But it was used for effect – and it drew some laughs. This time it sounded ... well, very wrong. Discordant. As if an acclaimed pianist just hit the wrong note on stage at the Opera House.
So the f-word still has potency. In a way it is gratifying to have that reinforced, even if it comes at the humiliation of a young bloke who isn't quite as perfect as he wants us to believe. You hear the word so often these days – television, movies but mostly around the workplace or on the street – that it's become part of the soundtrack to modern life. A generation ago 'f---' was a loud whip crack in the middle of a conversation. These days you're as likely to hear it in an aged care home as you would on a building site.
But there's another four-letter word that has also lost its power in recent years, a word the rest of the world believes best captures the very essence of being Australian.
We're killing the word 'mate', for so long a term of affection, a word that once conveyed so much about friendship and trust among men and an increasing number of women, a word that always meant "I've got your back". 'Mate' is in danger of becoming a trite cliche. We're turning it into a superficial, vanilla form of greeting, over-used, often reeking of false sincerity. Please, the next time I'm greeted by a salesperson in a store as "mate", I'm walking straight out.
And who's up for a lengthy ban on the use of its closely related cousin 'maaaate'? I recently ran into someone I hadn't seen in years. He put out his arms and went "maaaate – long time no see mate ..." I'm sorry? We were Siamese twins separated at birth? Did I give you a life-saving kidney 20 years ago?
Don't get me wrong. I love the word 'mate'. Nothing – unless you were born in a rusting tin shearing shed on the outskirts of Woop Woop – beats it as the embodiment of the Australian ethos. It has long survived while 'strewth', 'cobber', 'beaut' and other old favourites faded.
But we – all of us – have devalued the currency. I'm shocking at remembering names and I've spent the past few decades greeting colleagues in the corridor as "mate". There's the postie (Steve? Jim? – 'mate' is always safer), the kid two doors down and the bloke I keep bumping into at the hardware store with thick eyebrows who seems to know me better than I know myself.
We've allowed it to be hijacked by many who don't deserve to use it, like the Labor Right, who redefined it out of expediency to justify new forms of betrayal and under-the-table deals. John Howard split the nation by wanting "mateship" enshrined in the preamble to any new constitution. We approve of sports betting firms and beer companies littering their lame commercials with it. And somehow we gave permission for its definition to be so bastardised that its use can now carry a hint of menace. What quicker way to issue a threat than to begin a sentence with: "Now listen, mate ..."
Old 'mate' is in trouble. Surely we are duty bound to ease up on its use and haul it back to safety before it plunges into that fetid swamp of cliches. After all, isn't that what mates are for?
Garry Linnell is co-presenter of The Breakfast Show on 954 Talking Lifestyle
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