Sandy's Say: Quaint Arse
Sandy James's choice, chuckle-rich column reveals that there's more meanings than one to an acronym.
Qantas, the oldest continuously operated airline in the world, has announced that it is incurring significant losses and Australians are under threat of losing their international carrier.
There was a time when Aussies were fiercely proud of their airline and its impeccable safety record, boasting that QANTAS was an acronym for "Quite a Neat Trick, Arriving Safely." However, this safety record has not been so crash hot lately with a plane losing altitude (Oct 2008) and an oxygen gas bottle exploding and ripping a hole in the fuselage (July 2009). The two exploding engine incidents (Nov 2010) are being blamed on Boeing with BOEING now considered an acronym for "Broken Off Engines in Numerous Gardens."
Through the years, the public have attributed different meanings to the word Qantas. The commonly used "quaint arse" is a not so subtle reference to the fact that in the 70's and 80's a disproportionately large number of the flight stewards were obviously gay, wore tight pants and had a mincing gait. This observation led to the rewording of the acronym to "Queer and Nasty Types as Stewards."
In February 2007 the acronym took on new meaning when the actor, Ralph Fiennes was caught enjoying some in-flight entertainment with a Qantas stewardess, in the lavatory. The mind boggles. I'm sure you'd agree with me that there is barely room for one body in those invariably pungent cubicles, yet alone two bodies up to amorous high jinks. Anyway, after this mile high incident the acronym was said to stand for "Quickie Available (in) Toilets, Ask Staff."
This week, with talk of potential merger opportunities or consolidation with several Asian airlines, the acronym changed yet again to "Quasi Asian, Not Truly Australian Service." There was a discussion, in the newspaper, as to whether or not it would be more appropriate to change the emblem of the flying kangaroo, which appears on the tails of all Qantas aircraft, to that of a pair of crossed chopsticks.
Qantas's woes do not end here as they also have a low-cost, subsidiary airline known as Jetstar. This is such a no-frills airline that when a friend of mine asked for a blanket, on a flight to Hong Kong, she was told that it would cost her eight dollars.
"I only want to use it temporarily," she retorted, "not buy it."
The cost cutting extremes of this budget airline are gathering legendary status here in Australia. Last week there was a fierce electrical storm over Melbourne and the television announcer said that both Qantas and Virgin Airways aeroplanes had narrowly avoided being hit by lightening. "The Jetstar planes," she added in a mocking tone, "were never in danger as everyone knows that cardboard is not a good conductor of electricity."
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