There’s was so much to loathe and laugh at in Peter Mandelson’s contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘birthday book’ (which inadvertently has turned into more of a ‘burn book’). But the words ‘yum yum’ were, for me, in a league of their own. Whatever they were referring to – it could have been the peachy posterior of a pool-boy or a particularly perfect profiterole – they identified Mandelson as a practitioner of verbal infantilisation. For this alone, he deserved to be sent packing.
I spent five months in hospital during last winter and spring, and though the nursing staff were generally excellent, we were oft spoken to like children in preschool. I was frequently put in mind of the old Flanders and Swann song, the reprise of which runs ‘Pee, po, belly, bum, drawers!’, except on the wards it was ‘Wee wee, yummy, tummy, bum, pads!’. The nurses kindly referred to our nappies as ‘pads’ to save our dignity; due to my love of language and plain speaking, I refused to be co-opted into this and would announce clearly: ‘I’m so sorry, but my nappy needs changing.’ ‘Pad!’ would come the correction.
Cries of ‘yummy’ would greet some big spender offering the chocolate box around and ‘tummy’ would unforgivably be used to describe the adult human stomach, taking me back to the days when I wanted to physically injure Nigella Lawson for referring disgracefully to her ‘sticky-out tummy’. This asinine babble had the unforeseen effect of turning me into a sink-comp Lady Bracknell: ‘Do you refer to my vagina?’ I once answered icily when an alleged ‘noo noo’ on my person was mentioned. ‘Wee wee’, ‘poo’ and ‘pee’ never crossed my lips, and my insistence on referring to ‘urination’ and ‘excretion’ had the nurses sniggering, as if I was talking dirty.
I’m probably being unfair here – you can see how nurses might think that babying patients might make them feel better when they’re going through generally unpleasant and sometimes life-changing experiences. But I can’t help thinking that organisations in the world beyond the wards talk to us in infantilised language with darker motives. Sometimes, of course, it’s just people being stupid. But nevertheless I don’t want state-sponsored weather forecasters telling me to ‘Wrap up warm’ or ‘Stay hydrated’ – I want them to tell me what the weather’s going to be like.
Russell Brand and his ‘booky wook’ and David Tennant as Doctor Who’s ‘timey-wimey’ were bad enough – but don’t get me started on the cult of ‘nom’. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word ‘nom’ as an exclamation, informal, ‘used for showing that you like a particular kind of food or that you think something looks or sounds very good to eat: “Carrot cake muffins with a light cream cheese icing. Nom!”’ and ‘to eat something, especially in a way that shows you are enjoying what you are eating: “The toddler was very happily nomming her dinner.”’ That’s all well and good if one is an actual toddler, but if one is an adult and uses this word, I believe that there is a very good argument for removing that person’s voting rights. I would start with the authors of the ‘nom’ books, Kay and Kate Allinson. They have created five of these atrocities: the original Pinch of Nom, followed by Pinch of Nom: Comfort Food, Pinch of Nom: Quick & Easy, Pinch of Nom: Everyday Light, Pinch of Nom: All in One and – of course – Pinch of Nom: Air Fryer.
‘Children should be seen and not heard’ is probably a little harsh now. But adults who ape the language of children should be thoroughly ignored
Emboldened, I might then petition for the voting rights of those responsible for those Haribo television adverts wherein adults go about their daily business talking in the voices of toddlers to be similarly snatched away. Last year, Haribo made a proper fuss about this idiocy having been thrust upon the public for a decade: ‘Since 2014, Haribo’s iconic advertising campaigns have spread smiles and a sprinkling of mischief by depicting adults going about their daily routines while playfully speaking with kids’ voices and mannerisms. Today, we are pulling back the curtain on how the magic is made with the release of a new behind-the-scenes video, showing the origins and how the advertisement’s success has spread around the world. Our advertising philosophy of inspiring moments of simple, youthful delight aligns with the company’s overall mission to bring more childhood happiness to the world through sweet treats, no matter one’s age.’ This loathsomely patronising attitude has spread from confectioners to banks, who should be somewhat more serious – but last year, Barclays ran an ad which was solely peopled by children under the age of ten, some of them unwholesomely carrying babies supposedly of their own.
I’ll be accused of being a humourless hag, but I really do detect a darker motive behind all this. In his book Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood, Keith J. Hayward writes: ‘By mobilising lovable cartoon characters and cutesy talking animated animals, advertisers are attempting to deliberately stupefy their audience – to make them think and act like children. This is, after all, the goal of the Infantilist ethos – to create consumers who are capable of framing the world only in the most simplistic terms imaginable.’ Or as Gareth Roberts wrote in this magazine last year: ‘Very serious matters are routinely addressed by our most senior politicians and intellectuals as if the general public is about eight years old. The Scottish government thought long and hard about how to calm racial tensions and came up with the cartoon “hate monster”, a little character you might expect to find on a crisp packet aimed at children.’ This mode of attempt to stop anyone questioning the motives of any silly and/or sinister interest group going – including the state – can also be seen in the way trans activists keen to get their penises inside women’s spaces will portray themselves online as crying female children from Japanese cartoons. ‘Protect the dolls’? The average transexual looks more like the Gruffalo.
The way children are persistently urged not to quarrel and to get along above all else can be seen in the way ‘the adults in the room’ deem populist causes ‘divisive’ – against the status quo – and their propagators deserving of a spell on the naughty step. This plague of playschool has echoes even in the most serious occurrences, such as the murder of Charlie Kirk. The American online commentator Scott Caswell noted: ‘“Sic semper tyrannis,” John Wilkes Booth shouted as he leapt on to the stage after mortally wounding President Abraham Lincoln; Charlie Kirk’s assassin, among other things, etched references to a video game console and an emoji on to his ammunition, before taking the political commentator’s life. Talk about the infantilisation of western culture.’
When grown adults adopt the camouflage of extreme youth, there is probably something dastardly going on, with Mandelson’s sickening simpering over his bestest fwend a fine example. The 15th-century proverb ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ is probably a little harsh now. But adults who ape the language of children should be thoroughly ignored until they learn to pay the basic respect to civil discourse of talking like grown-ups – and never use the words ‘yum yum’ unless referring to the heroine of The Mikado.
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