Big gas taboos

One of the subjects dear to a sociolinguist's heart is language taboos. This week in the House of Commons a slip of the tongue that violated a language taboo derailed a serious question about the environment. While the slip was worth a smile, the venerable CBC's reporting of the slip is worth blogging...

This past Monday (Dec 4) Jack Layton, the NDP leader, rose to ask the PM, Stephen Harper, a question about the environment. The CBC reported it thus on their web site at 2:59 pm, in an article entitled "NDP chief's cheeky question steals the show in House of Commons Monday" (here's the link):

Layton rose in the Commons today to attack the government over subsidies to big oil companies. But he tripped over his tongue and instead asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper if he would finally cancel subsidies to "big oil and big ass." Layton meant to say "big gas."

The slip of the tongue brought laughter from all sides of the House.

Harper jokingly answered that he would "get to the bottom of it." He went on to joke that he wasn't sure if he should take Layton's miscue personally.

Later on that same afternoon (5:40 pm), the link to this article on the CBC web site was replaced with another version of the same story, this time cleaned up--with an explanation of what occurred, but no actual quote. This second article was entitled "Butt it wasn't supposed to be funny..." (link is here):

The House of Commons broke into cheers and laughter Monday after NDP Leader Jack Layton dropped the first letter from the word gas.

Layton was pressing Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cut subsidies to big gas producers, but misspoke.

Layton had a look of conviction as he launched into his stumble, but after a few seconds of parliamentary laughter, he grinned at his own mistake.

Why the change? Were the CBC censors on coffee break when the first "cheeky" article was posted, and only removed the offending word 3 hours later in the "butt" article? Are Canadian Internet readers not ready to face articles with the "a-" word? I'm happy to report that the following morning, the CBC had gone back to providing a link to the "cheeky" article on their main web site. A victory, perhaps, for free speech?

You may be wondering what Hansard (the official record of House business) has done with all this. I am pleased to report that the Hansard scribes reported the gaffe in clear unadulterated English (here is the link), adding with their typical understated style the reaction of the Honourable Members to Layton's goof:

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Globe and Mail chimed in with an article appropriately entitled "Does my gas look big in this?" (link is here). One thing we Canadians sure do well is laugh at ourselves!