word of the week: truant

the fifteenth century the word truant was applied to those schoolchildren who somehow managed to be elsewhere other than school when lessons were in progress.

The word truant always seems to have indicated someone who was on the move, although originally it had no connection with school. Instead it meant a vagabond or vagrant, coming into English in this sense from old French. It is also though to have had Celtic connections and to be related to Gaelic truaghan and Welsh truan, both denoting a wretched or pitiful person.

None of this sounds like much fun. Indeed it smacks of those terrible warnings which are routinely issued to school truants that if they do not go to school and get a good education they will end up among the unemployed - or among the vagabonds, vagrants and wretched persons. Yet we persist in associating the word truant with the word play which does convey the impression of being fun. Perhaps we should change the word play to something more dire.

Truant, indeed, has no need to look to play or to any other word to help it turn itself into a verb. It already functions by itself as a verb since children can be said to truant from school. This is admittedly rather formal but the word truant in any form, even in the phrase play truant, is a rather strange and even forbidding term. Small wonder then that children themselves hardly ever use it, preferring something more yoof-friendly.

There are several informal ways of describing the action of staying away from school and these tend to vary with both fashion and locality. A current favourite alternative to the phrase to play truant is to bunk off. This sounds as though it might have a sexual connection but that's probably because, especially in some accents, it can sound very like bonk. In fact, the origins of bunk off lie in the phrase to do a bunk meaning to run off or flee with a view to avoiding something, such as paying a debt.

Aussies tend to wag school when they absent themselves for no good reason. Since this phrase is frequently used in some of the teen-dominated Australian soaps it has found its way into the favour of some of the young in this country. This can be seen as the wheel turning full circle as the Australians got it from us in the first place, wag it having been common in Britain from the late nineteenth century.

Scotland has added its linguistic penny worth to the truancy issue. For example, Scots children once commonly spoke of plunking the school or plugging it. It is highly possible that some of them still do, but the young people I have asked about it looked at me with complete blankness as though my ark must be moored somewhere nearby.

Skiving is a popular informal synonym for truancy, both as an activity and as a linguistic expression. This is, of course, not by any means restricted to the young of the species and many adults skive off work if some totally irresistible alternative to work rears its head - a midweek football match, for example.

Skive means to shirk or to evade a duty or task. It thus does not necessarily involve the skiver's actual physical absence from work. Frequently it does mean that the offender is awol (absent without leave) and so truanting, but skiving can also mean staying in the place of work or education while not actually doing anything useful. As an art this stay-in-place form of skiving requires more skill and practice than walk-about skiving.

Staying away from school, or indeed from work, on a regular basis can be known more formally as chronic absenteeism. Sometimes chronic absentees plead non-existent but persistent in long lasting illness, although this seems only to affect them when school or work is mentioned. This form of skiving is known as malingering.

The modern opposite of absenteeism or truancy is presenteeism. This is not a brand new word, it having been with us off and on from the 1930s, but its connotations with length are new. Originally presenteeism simply indicated presence at work but it now indicates the practice of extending the working day to a ridiculous level.

This phenomena is associated with the late 1980s and the 1990s, a period during which workers have been all aware of the vulnerability of their jobs. Many of them

have taken to going very early to work and staying very late in a bid to demonstrate

to management their absolute commitment and loyalty to the firm. Management has often been all too quick to capitalise on this and to make it clear to the employees that excessively long hours are now the norm.

The Government is absolutely right to worry about the effects of truancy. However, presenteeism also has terrible implications for society. Perhaps it is time to look at the plight of those who stay too long as well as that of those who stay away.

wandering free

how truant has (dis)appeared recently in The Herald

Enter police to deal with the truant. Enter the Children's Panel, the community worker, the social worker. Enter the guidance teacher and learning support

Parents and the local clergy in Easterhouse are concerned that the loss of their Catholic secondary school will leave the Catholic population of Easterhouse very exposed and children will play

truant rather than go to a school outside their ''territory''

Some #23m has already been pledged

for out-of-school learning projects

for truants

The figures reveal that 50% of the bullied youngsters faced harassment every day at school. Boys were less likely to seek help and girls were more likely to play truant to beat the victimisation

Councillor Kenny Gibson, the Scottish National Party's local government spokesman, said that reducing the number of truants could have dramatic spin-off effects. ''I'm told that

one-third of all housebreakings in Glasgow are carried out by truant pupils. If you reduce the number of truants then clearly you can reduce the number of break-ins