The column that has fun with the smaller mistakes and missteps of Australia’s mainstream mediocre; that pays homage to those sweet little fishes that individually don’t amount to a full meal but collectively can cause a tummy upset over the overall state of the once great and noble craft of journalism in this country.

Some of the washed-up, bitter, old hacks who compile this column and its more serious sibling Media Glass House have hugged one another and some have wept openly at the prospect, as one blurted out, that “maybe the craft of journalism can be saved after all!”

The rest of The Bug’s staff think the silly old buggers are grasping at straws but what has given them hope is the repeated use over the past 24 hours of the traditional and correct “hunkered down” to describe what people are doing as Cyclone Alfred approaches, rather than the incorrect “bunkered down” that have been in common use for a long time now.

“English usage does change over time but not to our fellow MB pedants,” one colleague offered.

But one of those holding out hope for journalism’s future replied: “We had come to accept that “hunkered” was largely dead in the water but maybe there’s still signs of life.”

“I haven’t heard hunker used so much since a young Elvis Presley sang that over and over again in a hit song more than half-a-century ago.”

What our Mediocre Bytes folk are ecstatic about is that on Nine News Queensland last night reporter Clare Todhunter talked about “hunkered-down residents” on Stradbroke Island. Not long after, ABC reporter Victoria Pengilley told the 7pm Queensland news bulletin that Tumbulgum in the Northern Rivers was virtually a ghost town as “residents hunkered down”. And just a half-hour later, Tom Hartley on 7.30 declared that emergency volunteers “were expected to be hunkered down by midday”.

Our oldest MB compiler said: “I’m about the age of those three reporters combined so they’ve really lifted my spirits that maybe correct English has a place in modern journalism.

“I have a burning love for them. They’ve given me hope. We might even see the return of under way as two words?”

But some of his colleagues are not so convinced.

“Bunkered down has been used repeatedly across news platforms over recent days so I think my silly old bugger of a mate might be reading too much into some cherry-picked examples.

“There’s been a tidal surge of bunks and a rain shower of hunks.”

Another colleague supported that view.

“Some days ago, the first use of bunkered down we spotted appeared on a Lord Howe story. We’ve been keeping a tally ever since and it’s not pretty.”

“Still, thank goodness the island had a golf course where people could take cover!”

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