I was deeply saddened to hear that my good friend and colleague Wanchai Rujawongsanti passed away earlier this week at the young age of 61 after losing a battle with cancer. I worked with him on the sports desk at the Bangkok Post for two decades and it was a time I will always cherish.
When I retired Wanchai became the first-ever Thai sports editor at the Bangkok Post and did an excellent job in sometimes difficult circumstances. He only retired last year.
I first met Wanchai when he came to the Post for a job interview for the position of chief sports reporter. He had been highly recommended by colleague Jim Hawker who had previously worked with him and knew his qualities. Wanchai impressed at the interview with his honest answers, command of English and knowledge of sport.
He also had a keen sense of humour, an important ingredient for working on a newspaper with all its deadline demands.
Wanchai's reports were spot on and his excellent English made life a lot easier for me as sports editor. He soon became a key member of the section and on occasions when I had to leave the office I knew the sports desk was in good hands.
Wanchai was very fond of football and a keen supporter of Manchester United. He knew I was a Chelsea fan and there was plenty of good-natured banter going on when either of our teams suffered embarrassing defeats.
Wanchai Rujawongsanti
A day with the elephants
There is one particular occasion involving Wanchai away from the office which I remember well. In 2003 the Bangkok Post and the Nation fielded teams to provide a light-hearted warm-up to the Elephant Polo Tournament in Hua Hin.
I recall Wanchai was team captain but like the rest of us he had never been aboard an elephant, let alone played polo. Even more alarming a large crowd showed up to witness our performance.
Suffice to say we were hopeless but had great fun and although we didn't win we were proud that none of us actually fell off our respective pachyderms.
I'd never seen Wanchai so relieved than after climbing down from his elephant at the end of the final chukka. He looked at me with a broad grin and said "I think we've earned a drink". I totally agreed. Wanchai was a great colleague and we will all miss him. RIP
Word on the street
For the past few weeks international dictionaries have been unloading on us their words of the year. Collins set the ball rolling by choosing "brat" as their top word for 2024 while Cambridge decided it was "manifest".
This week it was the turn of the Oxford English Dictionary which came out with "brain rot".
Frankly they are not the most inspiring collection of words but according to the dictionaries they have been among the most frequently used terms during the past 12 months, which possibly reflects the general state of the world… a real mess.
According to the OED the unpleasant-sounding "brain rot" refers to "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state... as a result of overconsumption of material (particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging".
In other words people are spending too much time playing with their phones.
A shambles
For more than a decade now these words of the year have been on the gloomy side. It all began back in 2012 when the OED created a stir upon announcing the best word to sum up that year was "omnishambles".
It was defined as "a situation that had been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations".
"Omnishambles" could equally be applied to 2024. So maybe "brain rot" is not so bad after all.
Kinquering Congs
The joy of the English language is that it can be fun even when it's misused or abused, something I am guilty of every week. Some of the most entertaining linguistic diversions come in the form of spoonerisms.
The Rev William Spooner (1844–1930) warden of New College, Oxford, became renowned for unintentionally transposing the initial consonants of a pair of words, often resulting in an amusing ambiguity of meaning. Most of us have probably inadvertently come out with a spoonerism at one time or another.
Some of the examples you may see concerning Spooner are possibly apocryphal but don't let that spoil the fun.
At a hi-so dinner party Spooner proposed a toast to chief guest Queen Victoria but was so nervous he blurted out "three cheers to our queer old dean".
But his most famous slip of the tongue, and one he admitted to, occurred while standing in a church and announcing the next hymn as "Kinquering Congs Their Titles take".
It can happen to anyone
Spoonerisms occur on important occasions when the speaker is a little anxious. Some years ago when introducing Prince Philip to the refurbished ship Cutty Sark the nervous mayor of Greenwich mistakenly named the ship the "Sutty Cark".
Then there was the case of a curate at a formal church luncheon who invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to "have another piece of Grace, Your Cake".
BBC radio announcers have inevitably provided a few spoonerisms over the years. One weather forecaster prompted confusion when he warned of "widespread fist and mog patches".
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