A ''gaffe '' is more often than not a stupid or careless mistake, particularly made in public places. If unintentional, it may be forgiven and, if is intentional, it may offend or upset people a countries. Even if such social gaffes may be less appalling and falling under the lower end of the spectrum their impact is quite visible and definitely it doesn’t mean they can be ignored passed off as some sort of silly gag. A political gaffe is a different matter when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say. Most politicians never admit their mistake.
Queen Elizabeth's husband Duke of Edinburg. cartoonstock.com |
If you are under the impression that uttering gaffes is exclusively the domain of politicians world over and other have no have business in that realm, you are wrong. That exclusivity in making blunder in public places, affecting their decency and decorum is facing competition not only among the gaffers mostly either American politicians or Indian politicians or others but also among the royals, those who have blue blood. If US President Joe Biden's self-inflicted flubs are widely discussed with enthusiasm and interest on the American media, the same gets more attention in the case of British royal belches in the form of gaffes and no doubt the audiences frequently get something to laugh at to subdue their frustration and ennui at a time when the economy is depressed.
The media in Britain never fail to sharpen their eyes and ears when they attend the meeting or witness an interview with the British royals. But, in the last several years, the darts of weird blunders of the most sophisticated and cultured royal British family members take the front page of the tabloids. The sensational scoop-hungry British media overstep into the privacy of royals and have a field day. Sitting on the top of the pedestal in a stratified British society embarrassing remarks from the royal members never go unnoticed and the media grab them as fodder to boost their circulation. Little do we realize that frailty is part of life and we all make mistakes in the social sphere. When social awkwardness is frequently repeated, such gaffes, particularly from the royal families breach social tolerance and make the people quite irritating. What about the victim of their social stumble or a person or a group of one community targeted by gaffers. One person's social degradation or stumble is the cause of mental pain or plain embarrassment for a group of others.
The British royals, including prince Philips. flickeringmyth.com/ |
All in the (Royal British) family. express.co.uk |
Queen Elizabeth quote. azquotes.com |
Queen Elizabeth quote.pinterest.co.uk |
Duke of Edinburgh (prince Philips)'s weird public utterances:
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01. At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”
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02. To female sea cadet: “Do you work in a strip club?”
03. To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”
04. To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”
05. To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993: “People say after a fire rage that’s the worst. We’re still drying out Windsor Castle.”
Prince Philips. .milforddailynews.com/ |
Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philips). dailystar.co.uk |
06. To a female solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”
07. After Dumbcane massacre, 1996: “If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?”
08. On stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: “We didn’t have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!”
09. On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would.
10. Mr Whitaker wrote: "When Philip's cousin Patricia Mountbatten remarked on Elizabeth's flawless complexion, the Prince joked: 'Yes, and she's like that all over."
11. How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?” – to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland, during a 1995 walkabout.
12.“If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aero plane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it” – at a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting.
13.“Bloody silly fool!” – in 1997, referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who did not recognize him.
14.“Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf” – to young deaf people in Cardiff in 1999, referring to a school’s steel band.
14. “You are a woman, aren’t you?” – in Kenya in 1984, after accepting a small gift from a local woman.
15. When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.
16. Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" In the Cayman Islands, 1994.
17. On a trip to China in the 1980s, prince Philips warned British students: “You’ll get slitty
eyes if you stay too long.”
18. In 1993, Philip told a Briton he met in Hungary: “You can’t have been here that long -- you haven’t got a pot belly.
19. On a trip to Oban in Scotland in 1995, Philips did not leave the Scotts; he asked a driving instructor: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the (driving) test?”
20. While touring Australia in 2002, the prince yapping mouth went overtime and this time, he took on the natives and asked an Aborigine whether they still threw spears at each other.
21. On a rip to the memorial in Amritsar, Punjab, India for the 1919 massacre of Indians by Brig. Gen. Dyer, Philips' silly remarks angered the Indians. When he saw a plaque at the memorial which read “This place is saturated with the blood of about two thousand Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, '' he burped up another gaffe: ''Two thousand? It wasn't, was it," I was in the Navy with Dyer's son. That's a bi bit exaggerated… it must include the wounded," he is reported to have said.
Mind you, when a gaffe is made frequently by a cultured person, it is something more than derogatory and quite disgusting. The gaffer does not understand the pain and the shame of the targeted person or community. All these gaffes show the husband of Queen Elizabeth in bad light, unworthy of his exalted status, the consort of the English Queen.
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