Sorry about cancerous, says PM - try odious

Prime Minister Helen Clark has apologised to people who were offended by her use of the word 'cancerous' to describe National leader Don Brash.

But she has also invited them to look the word up in their dictionaries.

"I'm sorry if people have taken offence," Helen Clark said yesterday. "But clearly it is not a description one applies to people with cancer.

"I think people should consult their dictionaries."

The Prime Minister used the word almost two weeks ago in a strong verbal attack on Dr Brash.

It came just days after a furious Helen Clark accused Dr Brash and National of spreading malicious rumours about her husband, Professor Peter Davis, and at a time when Labour was expressing anger at being called corrupt in the election spending battle.

But her description of her political opponent as a "corrosive and cancerous person within the New Zealand political system" did not go down well with the public.

A Herald-DigiPoll survey found that 73.6 per cent of people thought the comment was "not okay".

There was also distaste from some cancer patients, who wrote to both the Herald and the Prime Minister to say that they had been insulted by the statement.

One cancer group went public to argue that patients facing strenuous treatment did not need the additional stress of "such a slur".

Various dictionaries show that the word cancer and its derivative cancerous can refer either to a malignant tumour or be used to describe something evil, destructive, or corrupt.

Yesterday she said the word 'cancerous' was used in the context of a "poisonous political style" but recently she has favoured words such as 'odious'.