Esther McCarthy: I think I might have a crush on Bill Nighy — I’m leaning in to it

Bill Nighy attending the special screening of Ride or Die, at the Ham Hotel in Soho, central London. Picture: Ian West/PA Wire.

Bill Nighy — 76 years of unimpeachable cool, a man who can say more with a slightly arched brow than most of us could in a lifetime — has taken to Instagram to banish words from the English language. I just happened across it, and now I am obsessed. I’m so easily distracted these days, like Homer Simpson chasing a dog with a pouffy tail. “Heeheehee! Here, pouff!”

This week’s casualties on Bill’s stiff cue card are “lean in,” “fur baby,” “simps,” “babe” and “gimp”. He is seeing these for the first time, he reminds us, as he reads them out and passes his decree, so they must be suggested by followers. It’s very off the cuff and unrehearsed. He delivers each verdict with the weary disdain of a man who has seen too much.

I can relate. I’m with him on most of them, but leave fur baby alone. I don’t use it myself, mind, mainly because the gangly canine in our house does not fit the vibe, he’s more like the scruffy second cousin who comes to visit, wreaks the gaff, and settles in for the next 12 - 15 years.

But I know enough sane people who truly treat their dog like a precious member of the family, so back off, Bill. And I must say, I love a good “Hiiii babe!” when the brain fog descends and you can’t remember someone’s name. “It’s Fr McDonnagh to you,” is not the response you want to hear though.

But I think Mr Nighy with his flirty pursed lips is on to something. There are some words and expressions that we need to dump into the Room 101 of lexicology.

Together forever, and never to part

Let’s start close to home, with our partners. “Hubby” makes me shudder. It should never have survived long enough to enter the cultural lexicon in the first place. The first person who said it, their friend should have taken her quietly aside, and had a word. Yet here it is, thriving like a weed nobody pulled.

It is usually used by a woman who actually despises her husband and is probably carefully grinding up glass in her pestle and mortar to sprinkle in his lasagne.

“Oh no, rest in peace my darling hubby who died from mysterious bleeding of the anus,” she’ll write on RIP.ie before cashing in the suspiciously excessive life insurance policy.

I also move to ban ‘My other half’. Were you once a full, functioning person, Janet, but are now merely 50% of one, wandering around Tesco looking for your missing bits? That Plato fella has a lot to answer for.

Look, just call him that auld bollix. It worked for our grandparents. It’s endearing. On Valentine’s Day, go ahead and upgrade him to langball. He can be called by his first name on Christmas, his birthday, and the turn of the millennium.

Keeping mum

I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that parenting in general has developed its own dialect in the past few years, mostly imported from gentle-parenting social media accounts. I’ll put my hand up here and admit to being part of the problem rather than the solution.

I find myself using phrases like “big feelings” multiple times a day. I read a parenting blog recently that was giving advice on how to manage a child who was misbehaving. Start off with, “it’s ok to be mad, but it’s not ok to....,” for example, raise your voice, or slam the door, the expert explained. In my case I found myself filling that blank with fairly outrageous, borderline-criminal behaviour. I think they just hear that it’s ok to be mad part and then go, Thanks Mom! and go hell for leather with whatever destructive behaviour they were doing in the first place.

Again, The Simpsons pop into my head whenever this happens. Marge is comforting Homer as he recalls being bullied as a kid. She says sympathetically: “Children can be so cruel.” A passing Bart stops in the doorway, his face lights up. “We can? Thanks Mom!”. Then he runs into Lisa’s room to thump her. This sums up the vibe in our house.

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living

Workplace speak deserves its own tribunal. Again, I am guilty as charged on this one.

“Circle back.” “Let’s take this offline.” “Going forward.” 

“I don’t have the bandwidth” — said by a person whose actual bandwidth involves scrolling Instagram for 40 minutes watching a sexy slender man banish words from the English language. Cough.

But at least I’m not as bad as the marketing department. Don’t come at me, guys and gals, you know it’s true. Did someone say synergy? 

So there you have it. I’m sure you’ll all have your words you’d like banished, a lot of people seem to have a problem with ‘moist’ but let me tell you, since Vagifem has become part of my bedtime routine, moist is alright by me. Also, I think I might have a crush on septuagenarian babe Bill Nighy. I’m leaning in to it.