Max Cryer: Why have we stopped saying 'she'll be right'?

Nowadays the expression "she'll be right" is less frequently heard. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

Like short back and sides haircuts, "she'll be right" seems to be one of New Zealand's disappearing images. Once it was the catch-cry of the home handyman, the renovation gang, the long-haul truckies – and the ordinary bloke. It was the Kiwi standby to modify anything uncertain to be perceived as ultimately reliable.

She'll be right always referred to in the future, soothed any doubt or uncertainty.

Language analysts focusing on she'll be right declared it as expressing the belief that whatever is wrong will right itself with time. And in general we all optimistically agreed with that concise and optimistic outlook. However imbalanced a situation was in, however uncertain the plumbing repair or tomorrow's weather, NZ's assurance rode on the confidence booster that "she" would be right.

And although Kiwi blokes aren't and never were known for blowing their own trumpets, actually, the designation she'll be right usually was all right. If anything was going wrong, it would right itself in time.

It was the unspoken motto of Barry Crump and later Fred Dagg – both pleasantly confident of their own abilities, and the belief that everything would be that other old chestnut – hunky dory.

And a fictional comedy character had a brief time in the sun under the name Shelby Wright.

The saying she'll be right had a similar history in Australia. But there or here, nobody could find a reason for its being she who would ensure that anything doubtful would right itself in time.

Why she? Whatever was being declared to be safe and OK, could have been grammatically safer with the non-gender "it", but in a move towards making a phrase more colourful she stood in for whatever operative force would oversee whatever was in doubt – a kind of invisible and genial lady angel who signified confidence and certainty.

Australia moved even further into obscure imagery with the alternative version heard there, "she'll be apples" (believed to be inherited from Cockney rhyming slang, apples and spice (nice).

And on both sides of the Tasman there occasionally surfaced a curious hint of transgender when she'll be right became "she'll be jake".

But in fact jake did not signify a gender. It was a popular American slang word dating from the Depression era, short for Jamaican ginger. The "health-giving" product with that name contained a significant level of alcohol masquerading as a medicine, thus making it a legal purchase during America's 1920s prohibition, but bought mainly by the healthy. To be jake meant things were going well.

She'll be right can also be used to refer to a situation or object which is not perfect but is good enough to fulfil its purpose. Optimists say this is good but pessimists say apathetic.

At least three New Zealand books have been published with the title She'll be Right and none of them is a joke. Rachel Goodchild's study of "country women battling the odds" presents a portrait of the attitude necessary in isolated households. And the Salvation Army and Shell Motor Oil both entitle their published surveys as either with accuracy or irony.

But nowadays the expression is less frequently heard. In recent years she'll be right took on a less than flattering connotation. Alas, its confident optimism seemed to gain an unspoken concept of willingness to accept a low-quality or makeshift situation rather than work towards a more desirable and reliable solution.

A doubt drifted into the original, and hearing reference to a she'll be right attitude began to cause concern rather than confidence.

Perhaps saying it in Maori might restore some of its early dignity. In July 2009 the New Zealand Herald let readers know how to say she'll be right in Maori: Kei te pai, kei te tiakina tatou e te Atua.

• Max Cryer is author of The Godzone Dictionary.