Nickie Muir: Kitchen language boils over

Nickie Muir.

Porca dio!

I looked it up in the millennium before Google in the local library in a tattered Italian dictionary and my 14-year-old self wondered why on earth that was the most frequently heard thing that came from the mouth of the ageing pizza chef who was my boss.

Hilarious.

Was a female pig like a female dog and was that the most blasphemous thing the moustachioed Italiano could find and therefore the perfect vent for every vagrancy of life?

He said it when I put too much basil in the sauce.

He said it again when I brought him the wrong wine, and again when tossing a pan of pasta in sauce, the handle left lamely in his hand as pasta flew in a mesmerising arc across the kitchen.

He said it as he threw the glass of orange juice I passed him, and again when that smashed to pieces on the fridge behind me as I ducked.

Repeated vociferously as I laughed helplessly and refused to clean up the mess; "... and I don't care how many times you say, 'porca dio!'"

He then told me off for swearing ("Eats not naice for geels talking lika that!") and gave me $20 "danger money" at the end of the shift.

The fascination for swearing had begun.

The hypocrisy and gender/class politics inherent within were an endless source of interest.

Who on earth came up with sending someone "to the female genitalia of one's sister's parrot" in Spanish?

How come swearing was (then!) such a male thing?

At uni I found a copy of Robert Grave's Lars Porsena: On The Future of Swearing and marvelled at the cheek of someone in post-World War I England, advocating for a return to more prolific swearing.

Teaching in high schools these days can give even those who have done time in commercial kitchens an education in swearing.

How often do I remind that the "c" word is not another word for person?

But there is an argument for context and indeed audience and purpose in the realm of oaths and curses.

I recently told a group of boys off for laughing at a girl who was really good with computers.

"I don't know what you boys are on," I said "but techy girls rule, in fact techies are going to take over the world!"

When they had finally stopped rolling around the floor laughing and left, one of the girls came quietly up to me. "Umm Miss, 'techy' sounds a lot like 'teke' in te reo which is a kind of rude word for vagina - you really need to watch your language Miss."

I guess I do.

Not as much as the woman who stood up at a midwifery workshop a friend attended, though. Being culturally responsive, she wanted to use some newly learnt te reo and bring up an issue (take).

She announced to the circle of women: "I have a really big teke."

Aroha mai, amiga. Aroha mai. I share your shame.