One for the Road: Slagging vs winding

To almost plagiarise Chris Rock: There is slagging and there is winding, and winding has got to go.

For a long time, I was could not decide whether slagging was a sport, an art or a socially acceptable form of torture.

Practiced in homes, workplaces and pubs across the country, slagging is arguably the unsung hero of our national pastimes. Such is its ubiquity across this island, I wouldn’t be suprised if even the silence-sworn monks of our most withdrawn monasteries have developed some kind of subtle, non-verbal language for jocularly questioning the modesty of one and other’s own mothers.

But slagging is often confused with its much uglier, nastier nephew, winding. Until a few weeks ago, I had conflated the two my whole life. But now the difference has become clear(er).

If slagging is your likable uncle, loud, funny, a bit too much at times, but generally a decent aul’ skin, then winding is your sneaky, sadistic, weasel of a cousin. Mufasa would have slagged. Scar would have been a winding (insert word to form alliterative slur).

Anyway, here’s my attempt to provide a few rules of thumb to help you stay on the right side of the line, so you can live life as a good-natured slagger and avoid ever becoming a hateful, winding so-and-so.

The best way to walk the line relates to the idea of slagging being like a sport.

Now, when I say sport, I’m not talking about abuse thinly veiled as a game, like fox hunting or badger bating or ferret stabbing, or any of the other non-consensual and systematically unfair cruelties that some people pathetically try to pass off as recreation. No. I’m talking about normal sports played by normal people, in which two or more competitors pit themselves against each other for the sheer fun of seeing who comes out on top.

In a slagging, everybody should be at least half on-board, especially the person who is ostensibly getting the worse end of the stick. If this isn’t the case, you could be in danger of engaging in a dirty, rotten winding session, and someone’s bap may well get lost.

Another thing to bear in mind…

When there is a back-and-forth sparring session on the go, each slagger taking a shot before firing back, you are in safe territory. However, things get murky when it starts to feel like one way traffic. At this point, I reckon, the onus is on whoever is off-loading the grief (i.e. the slagger) to gauge how uncomfortable, embarrassed, small, or generally bad their words are making the slaggee feel.

For example, if one person is sitting on a bar stool looking triumphant, while the other buries their pint, mute and dejected, anymore stick, at this point, would almost certainly constitute winding, or, now I put it like that, indefensible bullying, probably.

Another question to ask is this: Who is this whole exercise for? Is the person instigating and perpetuating the slagging session doing it for the entertainment of themselves and the slagee, or is it for the amusement of others, at the total and unjustifiable expense of the slagee?

Are ye laughing with or laughing at. Every primary school pupil knows that one is grand, while the other is punishable by a milk carton to the teeth.

But here, I’d say far more people than care to admit are guilty of making somebody the butt of their joke in order to elevate themselves, either emotionally or socially.

I, for one, know rightly that I’ve done it a thousand times before and I’ll undoubtedly do it plenty of times again.

It’s a sad fact that most of us have a capacity for cruelty and it doesn’t lurk that far beneath the surface.

To quote Shane McGowan, “No sadist I, but I found delight in making my love cry.” Depressing but true, like so much about the world and the way we are.

However, on a positive note, the choice whether to be a slagger or a winder is one you can make for yourself.

Anyway, you can use these rules if your cold heart needs them, however, if there are tears rolling down someone’s cheeks, chances are, you’ve went too far.