Sadly that old saw no longer applies. These days the wrong word to the wrong person can send your illustrious career down the toilet, unless you do the right thing, cringe and grovel, and apologise unreservedly. Better still, put on a sack cloth and abase yourself through the streets.
Even harmless conversations can be dangerous these days, akin to using an outdate foreign phrase book. It's hard to keep up with the changes and words can now be lethal to your health and to wealth even if they are innocent. 'Niggardly' used to mean being ungenerous but no more.
John Lennon shocked the world in 1966 and lost record sales in the US by declaring that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. That seems like a very distant age. These days the great religious certainties concern race and gender. The biggest risk of heresy lies with them.
Pop singer James Blunt was accused of homophobia after joking about ‘picking up the soap’ in the showers with fellow public schoolboys. A spokesman - sorry, spokesperson - for the woke society said: ‘Although James might have been joking, this sort of language perpetuates negative stereotypes about gay men." Conversely, a rainbow-coloured ice cream brand in Russia has been accused of promoting homosexuality.
What exactly happens to people between uttering the fateful words and making their abject apology is a mystery. Something must be done to them. They all seem to visit Room 101 and come out grovelling. The British were once famous for apologising for everything, of course. If someone stepped on an Englishman’s foot, he would say sorry. The desire to be seen as a well-mannered person has somehow escalated into a need to be seen as doing and thinking the correct thing. A quaint custom of good manners has turned into a gigantic political cringe.
What would happen if anyone accused of using a wrong word or phrase refused to apologise to their accusers, we cannot know, as no one has yet risked it. What kind of fate awaits that person can only be imagined.
Time for an ice cream, I think. Pass me a Golden Gaytime!
