Bog Standard

Writing recently in the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway had a column that I found really interesting.

It was about how she’s now in her 50s and she doesn’t have the same level of fear at work that she used to. And it made me think, you know, when you’re a lot younger, a lot of times when you’re in a work situation, you do have a certain amount of fear and you often develop a kind of fearlessness as you get older, as your competency improves. But there was one line here that really jumped out at me. She was going around and asking if other people felt the same way. And then she said, “My tentative conclusion is that I am bog standard.”

Bog standard. Yeah.

Do you know this term?

It’s a British term.

Yes, yes, a Britishism that means ordinary, run-of-the-mill, bog standard. Just like the bog, which is, depending on your dialect, it’s the bathroom, the restroom, the place you do your business.

Yes, yes, and a bog roll is a roll of toilet paper, apparently.

I didn’t know this, and I started digging around because, of course, I was curious about where we ever got a term like bog standard, and apparently the origin is in dispute.

Some people think maybe it has to do with box standard, that is something coming straight out of the box.

But the research for that isn’t quite solid.

Imagine that, a slang word where the origins are in dispute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But in any case, I really love the notion.

Yeah.

Bog standard.

Bog standard.

Just utter run-of-the-mill.

Yeah.

We might say vanilla in this country.

That’s a great…

Even though vanilla is actually a flavor and not actually no flavor.

Yes.

Yes.

But let’s not get into that.

Let’s not.

But bog standard.

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