The Sun was first with the big news last week — Scarlett Johansson, the voluminously lipped sex-minx du jour, calls her breasts “My Girls”. “I like my body and face,” she said, echoing the thoughts of all but the blind, “and I love my breasts — ‘My Girls’.”
She then added that she wasn’t looking forward to having to use anti-ageing creams, as, “I never want to look like an old bag”. This was something which those of us touched with old-baggery — frankly, compared with Johansson, anyone over the age of 23 with lips that weigh less than a pound — could only murmur: “Yes, you are best off out of it, on balance, my pert darling. There is nothing to be recommended for the state where one can fold one’s stomach in half and punch it down into a pair of pants, like dough.”
Still, and not for the first time in her career*, Johansson has raised a vexed issue. What, exactly, can a grown woman of sense and wit call her bazoomikas? Obviously, Johansson has come up with the perfect answer — “My Girls”: playful, possessive, feminine — but no one else can now refer to their hurdy-gurdies as “My Girls”, as people will think you are referring to Scarlet Johansson’s funny udders, rather than your own.
“I dunno, do ‘My Girls’ look odd in this top?” “Well ‘My Girls’ would look fantastic in that top, as Scarlet Johansson’s got the kind of rack that could bring about world peace, but yours look lopsided and your nipples are all over the place. To be honest, they look like Marty Feldman’s eyes.”
In tabloid-world, of course, things are easy. The word is Boobs. Or, rather, BOOBS! “ ‘Keeley the Page 3 girl has great BOOBS!’ says Shayne Ward.” “Cheryl has the best BOOBS in Girls Aloud!” Even if one uses a different word when in conversation with a Sun journalist, they put it through their soaraway spellcheck and it still comes out as “boobs” anyway. I was once interviewed by them at the time I was referring to my pudding trolley as “jugs” — it was the height of Britpop; I was just doing what I thought Blur would approve of — and, sure enough, the piece appeared the next day as “ ‘I love my BOOBS,’ says Caitlin Moran.”
Personally, I don’t have boobs. Not one. It felt as odd as reading “ ‘I love my STRIPEY PREHENSILE LEMUR TAIL,’ says Caitlin Moran.”
“Boobs” are too Benny Hill. Boobs are perfectly spherical, bouncing, jokey — you might as well refer to your “pink chest clowns” and have done with it. Boobs are also, by and large, white and working class — you don’t really get Bangladeshi boobs, or boobs from Bahrain, or the boobs of Lady Antonia Fraser. Boobs are what Jordan and Pamela Anderson and Barbara Windsor have — except when Barbara had a breastcancer storyline in EastEnders, when they quickly became “breasts”. “Boobs”, of course, can’t get cancer, or lactate, or be subject to the subtle erotic arts of the Tao. Boobs exist only to jiggle up and down on the chests of women between the ages of 14 and 32, after which they get too droopy, and then presumably fall off the face of the Earth, into space, maybe to eventually become part of the giant rings of Saturn.
For exactly the opposite reasons, “breasts” will not do, either. You never hear the word “breasts” in a positive scenario. Breasts are bad news. Mainly, breasts exist to be examined by doctors and get cancer, but breasts also rack up impressive horror-points for being hacked off chickens and cooked in white wine, being the word of choice for awkward men about to have very bad sex with you (“May I touch your left breast with my finger?") and ageing pervs (“Her magnificent breasts were unleashed from the flimsy fabric, and seemed to dance towards Hengist”). “Bosom” sounds a bit Les Dawson. “Cleavage” doesn’t work, obviously — “I have a pain in my cleavage” — and neither does “Embonpoint”, because it sounds both embroidered and pointy, and so would cease to exist when you took your bra off.
“Tits” seems nicely down-to-earth for day-to-day use — “Give me a KitKat, I’ve just caught my tit in the door” — but struggles to make a satisfactory transition to night-time use, where it seems a little too brusque. Personally, I quite like the idea of “The Guys” — but then that’s also how I refer to my seven brothers and sisters, and as potential confusion there could lead to an even greater incidence of mental illness than we already have, I’ll probably have to leave it be.
I did go through a phase of referring to my upper palaver by the names of celebrated duos — “He made me get my Two Ronnies out!” “And it was all going so well, until The Scarecrow and Mrs King here refused to fit into the top.” “Actually I call them ‘Simon & Garfunkel’. Because one’s bigger than the other” — but then I had a baby. The midwife looked very sternly on me trying to wedge the business end of Christopher Dean into my newborn’s mouth, while Jayne Torvill lay, traumatized and bleeding, near by.
As you can see, the English language has yet to get its head convincingly around the problem of the average woman’s FiFi’s Funballs. Indeed, given what alarmed, ignorant, giggling fools we are, there’s every chance that this is a problem that could hang around for a while. Maybe we should give up on spoken language during the interregnum, and just refer to them as “(.)(.)” until science — or Scarlett Johansson — comes up with a solution.
*In Lost In Translation, she presented us with the question “Is it ever right not to have sex with Bill Murray during a trip to Japan?”, to which anyone with any sense was able to answer “No — you must always have sex with Bill Murray when you are on a trip to Japan.”
Doggone ... it's the hound of silence
A radio station for dogs has just been launched in Thailand. The ambitiously named dogradiothailand.com offers online radio for dogs, 24 hours a day — doubtless a boon for those night-owl guard-dogs that have to patrol major industrial complexes through the night — and is well aware of what your reaction might be.
“You might find it crazy!” the programmers acknowledge, on the home page. “But we promise to serve all kinds of music for your dog’s delight!” I spent a fruitless half hour pressing every button on the site to hear this unique selection of pro-canine hits, only to be met with absolute silence. Then I realised what was going on. They were clearly broadcasting in a frequency audible only to dogs. How cunning! Next week: the Italians launch “the world’s biggest IMAX cinema for flies”, which is actually just a 12in portable TV scattered with popcorn.
