Major Canadian controversy underway: CBC announcer Byron McDonald let some words slip on a hot mic about 14-year-old Chinese swimmer Ai Yanhan late last night.
Here’s what he said after Yanhan’s underwhelming performance allowed Canada to sneak a bronze in the 4x200m freestyle relay:
“The little 14-year-old from China dropped the ball, baby. Too excited, went out like stink, died like a pig. Thanks for that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vla1K1GJ9HQ
Naturally, people lost their minds although, really, it’s not that bad.
It wasn’t racist, he wasn’t calling her a pig, probably shouldn’t be fired, and, yeah, could have been a little more nuanced in his commentary on about her performance.
What really got under our skin was: where in God’s green swimming pool did this expression come from? Is it even an expression? Surely not. More importantly, what does it mean?
As far as we know, stink lingers and doesn’t “out” with any urgency. And when we think of things that quintessentially represent dying, pigs are pretty low on the list.
The CBC has since apologized, likely to bury one of the most fascinating and obscure idioms in Canadian history. It’ll take more than that for us to let it go: please, internet, help us contextualize “Out Like Stink, Died Like a Pig”
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