Red Rag

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote,

A move to expel Yasser Arafat has brought supporters streaming to his door, and he’s as happy as a sandboy about it.

Tim Blair thinks that is non-PC language and asks, “Wonder how many letters to the editor this will generate.”

Who knows? But none of them should be printed, because “sandboy” is not a “non-PC” term at all. A sandboy is not, as Blair hints, a racist reference to Arabs, but rather refers to a boy who carts sand around. And they were happy because they were paid in beer.

It wouldn’t have taken much effort for Tim to check this before he posted his ridiculous call to arms, because Google throws up quite a few definitions:

• “Only when the trade of sandboy had died out around the middle of the century could it be taken as a figurative reference to happiness.”

• “a peddler of sand at a seashore resort; used now only to express great happiness in the expression ‘happy as a sandboy’”

• “Small boys, ’sandboys’, will bring in buckets of sand and be paid with small amounts of beer which can make one smile excessively, hence the ‘happy’ part of your phrase.”

But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps the Sydney Morning Herald really is racist by using that term. In which case I’m sure Tim will suggest that his readers write to this Coffs Harbour holiday resort demanding that it change its name.