Áilín Quinlan: They’re politically incorrect... but I miss zinging putdowns

It hadn’t been the easiest of days. It had been a backs-to-the-wall kind of day.

But, as the saying goes, either you run the day, or the day runs you. So I put it all out of my mind, lit the fire, made a cup of tea, and did what the meditation gurus tell you to do. I distracted myself.

The way I do this best is to tune in to Below Deck.

Ever heard of it?

If not, be my guest.

But first off, hands up. I’m not a fan of any reality TV of any kind. But for some reason, Captain Lee Rosbach of the Below Deck U.S TV series is my big exception.

He’s my go-to guy, even on the worst of the worst of the bad days, despite the fact that he generally stays at arm’s length from the action, and never courts the cameras.

Yet despite the remoteness he nurtures, and the distance he keeps from most of the drama (most of the actual high jinks of the series lie in the many stormy interactions between lower-ranked, younger, more emotional or volatile crew members on the mega-yacht, The Valor) Captain Lee will occasionally treat us to a dash of dry, salty humour. And despite his affable demeanour, once riled, he doesn’t hold back with the sailor mouth.

Truly, his outbursts are worth waiting for.

I like his refusal to suffer fools gladly. I like the quiet, deep-seated kindness he occasionally shows. I enjoy the sense of weary resignation he expresses now and again as a result of having to deal with self-obsessed 20- and 30-something know-it-alls. There are the smart uniforms, of course. Oh, and let’s not forget those solid gold bracelets.

But ah, it’s the one-liners that make it.

That deadpan, expressionless, no-nonsense delivery that simply can’t be beaten.

Captain Lee takes no prisoners. He is such a glorious contrast to the stultifying atmosphere in so many modern workplaces redolent of po-faced, anodyne, politically-correct, pursed-mouthed, passive-aggressive entitlement; places where you take your life (or your job) in your hands by venturing to make even the most innocuous joke.

Captain Lee; man, he’s a breath of fresh, fresh air.

I fell around laughing at “We’re trying a new incentive programme. Work hard or get fired.”

And when he spat “I have a low level of tolerance for stupid.”

And “There can only be one captain on the board. On this one, I’m it.”

He’s featured in Below Deck since 2013, though he left it in Season 11. The interesting thing is that this seasoned sailor actually came to the marine industry quite late in life.

A former Wendy’s manager, Rosbach, whose roots are in Michigan, apparently never even saw the sea until he was in his thirties.

At some point he was in need of cash and responded to an advertisement seeking a mate for a delivery on a sailboat. He obtained his captain’s license at the age of 35 and then spent more than 30 years operating mega-yachts all over the world.

His language is sharp, rich, and colourful, especially at tense times.

“A deckhand with only one good arm is about as useful as a one-legged man in an a**-kicking contest,” he cursed once, and another time: “We’ve gone through more deckhands than a condom salesman in a who**house.”

He can be kind and reassuring. “A good sailor never learned a lesson in calm seas.” Or acerbic and no-nonsense: “If you start crying again, I’m gonna have to go get you some cheese to go with that wine you’ve been spouting.”

“Suck it up, creampuff,” he’ll growl, or, faced with a surfeit of incompetence, “they could f**k up a two-car funeral.”

Once I started looking, I found that I’m far from alone in my admiration.

He is quoted everywhere, and the best ones come when he gets angry: “It really wrinkles my a**.” Or “I’m madder than a pissed-on chicken.”

The language is rich in imagery and metaphor and the guy’s humorous philosophy of life is – to me, at least - the highlight of the series.

One of my favourite Captain Lee aphorisms is “Life is like a sh*t sandwich. The more bread you have, the more sh*t you have to eat.”

So then I started thinking about all of this, and about how Captain Lee’s colourful vocabulary reminded me of the Irish language’s wealth of proverbs and sayings … and, I thought, how come we seem to have forgotten so many of them?

Our everyday language has grown colourless. It’s functional and full of cliches and jargon.

It has become leached of the richness or colour or humour that I recall hearing from the older people in my childhood.

I remember once, when I was still in primary school, and rushing to get done with my homework and a job for my mother finished so I could go out and play with my friends, a neighbour laughed and told me as I tripped and dropped something: “You can’t bark and run at the same time.”

And then, one day in a bookshop in Skibbereen, I came across Seamus Cashman and Sean Gaffney’s fantastic treasure trove, Irish Proverbs And Sayings, published by O’Brien Press. And there they all were. All the sayings and the proverbs and the old aphorisms. On the giving – and taking – of advice. “A wise man takes advice.”

On listening: “The man who won’t have advice will have conflict.”

On mean-spiritedness: “He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

On affectation: “Like the sun on the hill-top but like a thistle on the hearth.”

And this one, which I’ve never heard before, but which is a real truism about life and what we really know about one another: “Often the hound that was made fun of killed the deer.”

On deception: “A sweet tongue is seldom without a sting to its root.”

On caution: “Don’t be breaking your shin on a stool that’s not in your way.”

And, something that would not go amiss for the entitled citizens of today’s world: “The well-filled belly has little understanding of the empty.”

This one has stayed with me: “Three things not to be trusted: a fine day in winter, the life of an old person, or the word of an important man unless it’s in writing.”

Phew! Got it in one.