Australian Rules

 "Class, today's assignment is to write something on deportment. John, do you have something?"
"I think I might."

We used to have pen pals, people we'd exchange letters with. Now we have all kinds of social media pals, friends and foes we trade pleasantries or barbs with.

A particular social media pal I have—Twitter, X, now Bluesky— is someone in Australia who I've come into contact with over the years because of our shared love of reading tribute obituaries. The kind in newspapers with bylines.

This particular friend also writes a few for Australian and U.K. publications. They are a retired OR nurse, former news writer for Australian TV and now a bit of a stringer for publications writing obituaries. They just did an obit on Jane Goodall for Australian Geographic. They also seem to travel a bit and are seldom home. (@justjenking.bsky.social)

Getting to the point, they recently posted a Bluesky tidbit about the success of women from England defeating Canadian women in the Women's Rugby World Cup.

Jen, wistfully comments in the posting: "I'd have been a great rugby player, I'm sure of it, but I was at deportment classes." In other words, she might have been a contendah.

Deportment is a word you seldom hear, much less see in writing. I had a vague notion it referred to behaving or learning social graces. I teased back a reply: "Is deportment really detention class?" There is a 16-hour time difference between New York (they are way ahead of us.) and where Jen lives in Australia, so getting an instant reply is never what happens.

I teased out a second query: Is deportment learning how to walk with a book on your head?"

It's taken a few days, but a reply from Jen has just been received. She is still feeling wistful about not being able to clomp onto the pitch in shorts to kick and carry what is a ball, but really looks like a swaddled baby being tossed around. Rugby players, male and female, all over the world do this while wearing a distinctive striped top called a "rugby shirt."

Just in from Jen. She adds a definition that will not likely appear in any acceptable dictionary: "Deportment classes are an outdated method of killing girls' dreams.

I think there is some PTSD going on here, and if this were the United States, Jen would likely be filing a lawsuit if there were no statue of limitations on childhood educational abuse. 

For the record, the OED tells us deportment is: 

1. Manner of conducting oneself; general behaviour [sic]
2. Bearing, demeanour, [sic] manners, esp. of a cultivated kind. 

Clearly, those deportment classes kept Jen from being on her field of dreams. 

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