The Nation of Shopkeepers Bites the Underdog
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Satirists are usually with the underdog; it is easy to make fun of the high and mighty. If you are already on the mat or close to it, there is not much you can do to execute a spectacular fall. Liz Truss was one from the beginning – one what? What is the gender correct version of the underdog here? We are on uncharted territory; believe it or not, even in the era of the World Wide Web and WhatsApp, there remain black holes on our planet and who knows what dangers lurk in that darkness. The male version “underdog” had his own TV series in the 60’s where he would rush to the rescue of his specie’s damsels in distress as a knight in shining armour, piping “There’s no need to fear, underdog is here.” Some half-baked attempts resulted in Suzanne Muldowney of The Howard Stern Show, who frequently dressed as the “real” underdog, being nicknamed the Underdog Lady – phooey! She herself did not like the label and preferred to call herself “Underdog”, albeit the fake one. More than half a century after this real-fake struggle, we are still scratching our heads – what is the feminine word for “Underdog.”
We phoned a few friends for help; most of them told us that we are on a fool’s errand. A male should be and is generally the Underdog. The fact that lexicographers have not listed the female version is proof enough that there cannot be one in God’s creaton. If that was so in the male-chauvinistic-pig-dominated 18th and 19th centuries, when women needed a slave to tighten the corset to under sixteen inches so that they could be accepted as legitimate female of the species, what chance you have of finding a word for that blasphemy in the 21st century, the golden age of gender-neutral pronouns. But human spirit is indefatigable and cannot be so easily cowed by the absence of a word for something that we firmly believe exists and remained prime minister of UK for 45 days. A loud thought, the innocent “underbitch”, loud enough that it was heard loud and clear on both the sides of the gender divide, got us a barrage of rotten eggs and tomatoes from both – You MCP, the left side screamed, the “bitch” is never “under”; she exists to dominate. The ones on the right side were more muted, they had been smitten and then bitten by some bitch or the other during the course of their futile forays looking for an “underbitch”. Forget it, they advised in whispers; there never was and there never will be.
We firmly believe in the dictum, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” If God can exist eternally without there being a shred of “evidence” of its existence, there must exist a word which we could apply to Liz Truss. We opened a voluminous thesaurus and looked for some palatable synonym for the word “bitch”. We had to close it in a hurry lest some voyeur, (this used be a male preserve but who knows in these “progressive” times) take a peek and put our life and limbs in jeopardy. One page of the tome listing the synonyms had more explosive power than what is left with Putin. He could consider using this fat book to supplement his firepower. “Whore, harlot, witch, hussy, broad, tart, shrew, vamp, vixen, nag, harridan, terrmagant …” As the words exploded in the mind, the last remaining vestige of sanity shrieked, “Stop! Stop! Stop! STOP and Slam shut!”
We thought that the very common “Liz” would have had many namesakes in history and the lives of those could provide a clue. The last Monarch of the nation, a Liz, warmed the throne for so long that many underdogs passed under her royal sword, some of them getting knighted in the process. She had her tough side towards Andrew and Merkel and soft side towards the “Rottweiler”, now Her majesty. By no stretch of imagination, she could be called an underdog, though her Kingdom seems to be one in the comity of nations, with the Sun setting for ever-longer durations on the Empire and sometimes not rising at all. Across the pond called the Atlantic there is another Liz, the Cheney, who is a staunch Republican, votes with the Democrats, and starts her day with giving her middle finger to the very Republican Trump. That is not our candidate either. Somerset Maugham’s “Liza of Lambeth” was a feisty lass, who did not mind working for the Revolution, though only industrial, so that she could go out on picnics. Liz Taylor – forget it, no point looking there, the forest of marriages and divorces too thick to penetrate.
The Nation of Shopkeepers has bitten the underdog. She fell merely because she could not understand the relationship between tax cuts, value of the Pound, and the stock Market. In any case, how many of us understand this relationship? If we did, we will all be as rich as Rishi Sunak’s father in law. It is sad to see an able underdog depart for such a minor gap in knowledge. But we stand with her and we do not accept defeat easily. The quest for a word can be everlasting. Sorry, Liz Truss, we have lost today’s battle but tomorrow is another day, full of hope. Every underdog is our hero and we will keep fighting for their rightful place, as male but more importantly as female in every dictionary, every thesaurus, Wait a minute! Did we use the word “Hero” for you? Pardon our ignorance, what should be the female word here?
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