Twerp ruled as unparliamentary

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 5

Twerp ruled as unparliamentary

By

ROBIN CHARTERIS

in London The mildly derogatory word “twerp” has joined the register of unparliamentary expressions in Britain. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr Bernard Weatherill, ruled this week it was “an inelegant parliamentary expression.” Twerp, or twirp, or more accurately twearp, is an eponymous word derived from T.W. Earp, of Exeter College, Oxford, who matriculated in 1911. He gave his name to the English language, according to the “Times” newspaper, because of the wrath he kindled in the rugby-playing hearties at Oxford, when he was

president of the Oxford Union, by being the last and wittiest of the decadents. The author, J. R. RTolkien, wrote of a companion, “he lived in Oxford where we lived in Pusey Street (rooming with Walton, the composer, and going about with T.W.Earp, the original twerp).” A twerp is regarded in Britain as a despicable or objectionable person, an insignificant person, a nobody, a nincompoop. The “Concise Oxford” describes it as a slang word for a bounder or cad. The “New Zealand Pocket Oxford,” edited by expatriate Kiwi, Robert Burchfield, says its origin is unknown.