My New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) states that to snub is to “rebuff, ignore, or spurn disdainfully” and goes on to define the noun as “an act of showing disdain or a lack of cordiality by rebuffing or ignoring someone or something”.
The same weighty tome reveals that inherent in “disdain” is an element of contempt or superiority in the mind of the person expressing disdain. All pretty clear. Not at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which has it arse about and thinks that inherent in “disdain” is a feeling of inferiority or a perception of the snubber’s contempt in the mind of the snubbee.
Today the Motion Picture Academy snubbed Aussies. Oh My God! Some of us were snubbed! By Americans!
Turns out some Australians didn’t win a prize. Perhaps it was based on the Academy’s view of what was meritorious? Or does the ABC think so little of Australian cinema that it assumes disdain for its participants?
The Budgie, Mr Kidman and even AC/DC have already been snubbed by those awful Americans this year!
Did Lindsay Tanner really deny snubbing the Reserve Bank, as claimed by the ABC?
The Age is at it too. Some aged rockers were recently snubbed but, horror of horrors, this time we snubbed ourselves!
The capital’s organ claims Red Gillard and the Commonwealth Government snubbed the entire nation and government of Japan. Sure, Red isn’t a diplomat but, though he’d snub anyone else who went to Nambour High, Chucky Rudd was, so it seems unlikely the Commonwealth would snub its biggest trading partner. And so it turns out. It merely refused a request from Japan that a ship not be allowed to dock here.
What does this say of the opinion of the national psyche held by many in the media? By using “snub” these media outlets seek to appeal to some emotion in Australians that would make us read their publications. Inferiority.
Something is inferior - the media’s conduct, or at least its usage of the language it purports to employ.
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