On Warriors, Streams, Villages and Andy Burnham!

When not writing about the World Cup – and how we won’t now be bringing it home, much of the mainstream and social media in England is writing about warriors, streams and villages; that is to say, Andy Burnham, our Prime Minister from 20^th July.

No doubt he is, like a lot of men now in their fifties or early sixties, named after the Queen’s second son. Ma and Pa Burnham must be forgiven for this – they didn’t have a crystal ball to tell them what lay in store and, thanks to his endeavours in the Falklands war when he was a young prince, Andrew was a bit of a hero for a while, living up to the origins of his name.

Andrew is from the ancient Greek, Andreas, which in turn has its origins in the greek word for man – andros. Andreios – pertaining to being an andros – has connotations of manliness, strength, determination, and other warrior-like qualities.

Andy – the hypocoristic term, or pet-name, Burnham is more commonly known by, is a relatively modern colloquialism and only appeared in written form in the early twentieth century. Burnham will be one of a very few prime ministers to be regularly referred to by a pet name: True, Blair is usually Tony, not Anthony, and James Callaghan was sometimes known as ‘Jim,’ (Ditto ‘Ted’ (Edward) Heath). But few people would have dared to call Margaret Thatcher ‘Maggie’ to her face. And neither Harold Macmillan nor Harold Wilson were known as ‘Harry.’

Andy’s surname – Burnham – has a centuries old lineage too. In Old English a burn was a stream and a ham was a small settlement. Hence Burnham was a place-name that originally was given to a homestead by a stream. So, somebody with the family name Burnham, would be assumed to be a person from such a place originally.

There are plenty of villages called Burnham in England, especially in East Anglia, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Somerset. Which, you may have noticed, are all in southern England. So much for Andy’s oft quoted credentials as a champion for the north of England (to the extent that he has been referred to as the ‘King of the North’ by some). No doubt somebody will be busy already on his biography and will be able to tell us where his ancestors came from before settling in the North West.

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America’s 250 Years of Independence – or semiquincentennial, if you prefer.

On 4^th July, the United States of America celebrated 250 years of independence from the United Kingdom. Parades, funfairs, speeches (long ones) from the president, and the biggest and bestest firework display EVER, marked the occasion. This despite, for many, neither the US nor the UK feeling particularly united at the moment, and the US involved in a war in the Middle East where the definition of winning remains equivocal.

The US has been there before. 200 years ago, they celebrated their bicentennial in a grim mood, having just been defeated in Vietnam, and the Nixon presidency ending in disgrace. But the country recovered its mojo pretty soon after and maybe the tricentennial in 50 years will take place in happier and more united circumstances. (And maybe we will still have a united kingdom here in the UK).

The 250-year landmark has been talked about for some years, and been much in the news over the last month or so. What has also appeared with increasing frequency in the last few weeks is the reference to this being the semiquincentennial – that is the half way mark to a 500^th anniversary, otherwise known as a quincentennial.

Both are words that my computer’s spellcheck has a problem with. But they make sense if you know your Latin. Semiquincentennial combines the Latin prefixes semi- (“half”) and quinque- (“five”) with centennial (“relating to a 100-year period”). Literally, it means “halfway to 500 years”.

Well, semiquincentennial might make literal sense, but it’s still a mouthful, and somewhat pretentious whoever’s mouth it is coming out of. I’m happy to stick with 250 – and, whilst I’m at it, here’s to America’s next 250 years.

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Anyone for Tennis?

What could be more British than tennis at Wimbledon, accompanied by another very British tradition – strawberries and cream?

Wimbledon starts next week, but the qualifier matches are already underway. However, unlike a lot of sports – cricket, rugby, long-bow archery … – tennis did not originate in England, but in France. Hence much of the vocabulary associated with the game has its origins in the French language. The fact that tennis was popular with royalty and aristocrats, and French was the ‘lingua franca’ in such circles from the middle ages, has probably been a factor too.

Tennis (the name probably came from Anglo-Norman French tenetz, which means to receive/take) grew out of an earlier French game called jeu de paume – game of the palm – which was played with the hands not racquets. (Not to be confused with ‘handball,’ which is played with goals, not a net).

Other tennis vocabulary is also French in origin. Deuce is derived from Old French deus (Modern French deux – two). And love probably comes from ‘l’oeuf’ – the egg, representing a zero which is a similar shape to an egg. (A similar idea to the ‘duck,’ short for duck egg, in cricket when you are dismissed without scoring a run).

The provenance of the word racquet itself is not too certain, but it probably comes from the Old French word – rachette. This happens to be the name of another game played in medieval times using the palm of the hand. Rachette has its own interesting backstory, as it was quite possibly first played in Arabia where it was known as rahat – a word grammatically derived from the Arabic raha – the palm of the hand. So, does this mean that tennis was actually invented in North Africa, not France?

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Seeking a Refugee in an Asylum – Or an Asylum Seeker in a Refuge?

I can’t think of a week in the past decade when there hasn’t been at least one mention of asylum seekers or refugees in the news headlines.

We all know what the words mean: an asylum seeker is someone who seeks sanctuary from danger, moving either to another part of their own country or to another country altogether. A refugee is someone seeking asylum anywhere, with the term broadening in the twentieth century to include anyone fleeing from their home because of war, persecution or natural disaster.

Where, though, do the words asylum and refugee themselves come from?

‘Refugee’ comes linguistically from the past participle of the French verb refugier, which means to take refuge. The word refuge comes from the Old French for ‘hiding place,’ which, in turn, comes from the Latin fugere ‘to flee,’ and refugium – ‘a place of refuge, a place to flee to.’ The word refuge is still used regularly in English – as in women’s refuge, a safe space for women (and their children) to flee in order to escape a violent partner. You can also find refuges (simple huts) on mountain sides where weary climbers find shelter from the elements, or you can ‘seek refuge’ from the rain while out shopping, by hanging out in shop doorways.

‘Asylum’ is from Ancient Greek asylon – a refuge or sanctuary, and asylos – safe from violence. The prefix ‘a’ is common in words derived from Greek – e.g. atypical, amoral – and means ‘not’ or ‘without.’ Sylon means ‘booty or seized cargo, which may be derived from the verb sylan – to rob.

When first used in English in the fifteenth century, ‘asylum’ referred to a place of sanctuary for criminals or debtors, and the negative connotations lingered on into the twentieth century in, for example, references to ‘lunatic asylums.’

Asylum, as we now use the word when linked with ‘seeker,’ was first used in print in America in 1929. The UK Refugee Council describes an asylum seeker as ‘a person who has left their country of origin and formally applied for asylum in another country, but whose application has not been concluded.’ That the term is still used pejoratively by many, can be inferred from the Council’s rather forlorn plea that journalists and others use the more people-centered phrase ‘person seeking asylum’ rather than ‘asylum seeker’ whenever possible.

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Marilyn Monroe: Just Another Dumb Blonde?

Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1^st 1926. Which means she would have been 100 years old this week. Instead she died tragically young, aged a mere 36, probably from a deliberate drug overdose.

Into those 36 years she packed several life-times. She had an insecure childhood often spent in care, but then went on to become a model, actress, comedian, singer, screen icon, sex symbol, blond bombshell, wife to – and mistress of – many famous men, drug dependent, depressive, intellectual …

Hang on a minute – Intellectual? Marilyn?

What is not so well known about her is her love of reading and the diversity of her reading matter. Her library of around 400 books – which accompanied her on her many house moves – included books on psychology, philosophy, poetry, science, pets, and gardening as well as a number of contemporary novels. She also had a number of cookery books, complete with the kind of food stains and jottings in the margin that recipe books pick up from active use in the kitchen, despite her reputation for being a poor cook.

One of her favourite authors was the Russian, Dostoevsky. She was such a fan, she even petitioned Hollywood, unsuccessfully, to play Grushenka in the film adaptation of the novel, The Brothers Karamazov.

I used to think her marriage to the playwright, Arthur Miller – who was much older than her and had an international reputation as an intellectual – was a strange misalliance. Clearly he must have been having a midlife crisis when he fell for the blonde sex siren, as clever men sometimes do. True, the marriage was doomed, and had fallen apart even during the filming of The Misfits (a script he had written specially for her). But the intellectual gap between them was not so great.

Indeed, Marilyn loved spending time with writers, apart from Miller. These included John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell. They, in turn, liked being with her, admired her, and – in some cases – loved her.

Marilyn, it seemed, was an avid reader all her life, hungry for knowledge, and she used what she learnt to enhance her acting and to enrich her personal and professional life. Not such a dumb blonde after all.

There is more information about Marilyn’s reading habits in Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe by Dr Gail Crowther, published by Corsair.

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Queen Elizabeth the King’s Mother?

Recently the linguist, Peter Trudgill, attempted to answer the questions that has been troubling us all (there being so little else going on in the world, let alone the UK) – why was the late queen’s mother referred to as the Queen Mother, not the Queen’s Mother?

According to Trudgill, it is all to do with Old English grammar and the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the day when Archangel Gabriel visited Mary to inform her that she was going to give birth to the Son of God. This day is known in the Christian calendar as Lady Day; ‘Our Lady’ being the title traditionally given to Mary, mother of Jesus.

But why was it called Lady Day, not Lady’s Day (and, hence) why Queen Mother, not Queen’s Mother?

The answer lies in the history of English grammar. Once upon a time English, like Latin, had three grammatical genders: feminine, masculine, and neuter. Also, in old English grammar, the genitive (possessive) grammatical case was indicated by the addition of an ‘s,’ to masculine and neuter, but not feminine, nouns. Both lady and queen were feminine nouns – hence no ‘s’ was added.

Although we have now largely lost grammatical gender in English, along with the contingent rules about the possessive ‘s’, the phrases ‘Queen Mother ‘and ‘Lady Day’ survived into Medieval English and still apply in Modern English.

This is tosh, says another linguist. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was a queen in her own right, as she was married to a king. By implication, calling her the Queen Mother was simply to differentiate her from her daughter, another Elizabeth, who also became a queen on her father’s death. Therefore, this logic goes, the senior Elizabeth would have been correctly referred to as the Queen Mother even if her first born had been a son and become king.

Which begs the question: if the late Queen Elizabeth 11 had abdicated to let her son become king, would she too have become known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on account of being Charles’s mum, but a queen in her own right – or would we have know her as Queen Elizabeth the King’s Mother (with the apostrophe and ‘s’ needed because king is a masculine noun)?

We will never know.

Well, I did say it was a quiet week on the news front …

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Shakespeare – A Man for All [Electoral] Seasons

There’s no doubting that Shakespeare had a way with words. But did he have an apt phrase for the recent council elections in the UK (and pending elections in the USA?) A quick trawl through his plays would suggest that he did. Here are just a few examples:

You find an unwelcome candidate at your door, want them to go away, but also want to have the last word – ‘I do desire that we may be better strangers.’ (As You Like It). Or – ‘I do suspect thee very grievously.’ (King John)

You’ve attended a set of disappointing hustings, and wish you’d stayed at home – ‘I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song.’ (King John). Or – ‘The pox of such antic lisping affecting phantasimes, these new tuners of accent’ (Romeo and Juliet)

You are unimpressed by dubious manifesto promises, and want to see/hear – ‘More matter with less art.’ (Henry 1V part 1). Or, you feel a politician has pandered too much to the first-time voters, offering them dangerously empty promises – ‘Villainous, abominable, misleader of youth.’ (Henry 1V part 1)

Later, you may be even more unimpressed by some of the acceptance speeches – ‘That’s somewhat madly spoken.’ (Measure for Measure).

And disappointed again when they start debating serious issues in the Council chamber / House – ‘Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.’ (The Tempest).

Perhaps because the debating chamber now includes many more politicians that you don’t like than it used to, you notice how – ‘One may smile and smile and be a villain.’ (Hamlet). Or, – ‘I never did know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart’ (Merry Wives of Windsor)

Later, you may find you are not the only one who is disappointed and wants change, and you think – ‘Let’s consult together against this greasy knight.’ (The Merry Wives of Windsor). Maybe several of you want to bring about a politician’s downfall; after all – ‘He has much worthy blame laid upon him.’ (All’s Well that Ends Well)

Sadly, this may have been someone you voted for in good faith, but who now disappoints and you’re kicking yourself for being so naïve – ‘Does not the stone rebuke you, for being more stone than it?’ (The Winter’s Tale).

Of course, politicians have feelings too, and often find their constituents, or fellow politicians, exasperating. They may feel it is they who deserve the last word – ‘You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things.’ (Julius Caesar).

However, if they are a bad’n, their downfall is to be welcomed – ‘The fall of an ass, is no great hurt.’ (Cymbeline).

Some of Shakespeare’s quotes may strike a chord with you – I couldn’t possibly comment. After all, as Dogberry says in Much Ado About Nothing – ‘Comparisons are odorous.’

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

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Dangling Participles

I don’t want to get too personal, but how do you feel about dangling participles? Do you reel back in horror at the sight of them? Feel there’s a time and place for them if used wisely? Or wonder what on earth I am talking about?

If you are in the last group, here’s an explanation. A dangling participle occurs when a clause in a sentence relates not to the noun or pronoun that follows it, but to one in a previous clause.

As in: ‘Mary thought Mr Brown was a spiteful misogynist and she would never work for him; then again, being a woman, he probably wouldn’t employ her anyway.’

Sometimes a dangling participle will cause confusion, but few readers of the above sentence would assume that Mr Brown is female. Being a woman obviously refers to Mary.

Many style guides disapprove of the use of dangling participles. John Humphreys, in Lost for Words calls their use a ‘hanging offence’ (pun, presumably, intended) because they are ugly and can mislead the reader.

Obviously if using one really will mislead a reader, it shouldn’t be used, but who could improve on Shakespeare’s phrasing when old Hamlet’s ghost tells his son that

“Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me”?

No words are wasted, and everybody knows it is Hamlet senior who was sleeping in the orchard, not the serpent. (AKA Claudius, old Hamlet’s younger brother, now king in his place.)

Dangling participles are not necessarily a good or bad part of sentence construction, and many writers will use one correctly without thinking. The only test for their use is that when the reader comes to the end of the sentence, is the meaning clear? I would say that Shakespeare definitely passes.

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This blog first appeared in June 2018

What has Hungary Ever Done for Us?

There is a keenly watched general election underway in Hungary as I write this post. Unlike certain world leaders – who really should know better – I will not post anything that could be construed as electoral interference, or comment on the merits of the rival candidates. But I do understand that the result is seen as important across Europe and beyond.

But why should we be interested in a ‘faraway country [about which] we know [next to] nothing’ (to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain in regard to Czechoslovakia at the outbreak of the second world war)?

What has Hungary ever done for us?

For a start, here are a few words that are in common use in English that you may not realise have their roots in Hungarian:

Biro – named after Laszio Biro, the inventor of the ball point pen.

Coach (as in carriage) – from kocsi. Kocs was the village where above axle springs on a horse drawn vehicle were first invented, making for a much more comfortable conveyance.

Goulash – from gulyas, a stew (you probably did know that one came from Hungary).

Hussar – a light cavalry officer. Hussar originally meant a free-booter / pirate, and its original meaning is still apparent in the word corsair.

Paprika – a spice made of dried capsicum.

Hungarian, like Finnish, is a difficult language to learn. They both belong to the Uralic language family and have approximately 200 words in common. But over the centuries the languages have grown apart and are not now mutually intelligible.

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Another Book for Teens Now Free on Kindle

Schools are still on holiday and you may be getting exhausted trying to get your teenagers off their phones and into reading a book. Here is one they might like – and it’s free on Kindle till Friday.

BLURB: Life for fourteen year old Alex is okay most of the time. He enjoys school, has a best friend Sam, and a pretty and only mildly irritating younger sister, Nicky. But then Sam starts acting strangely, and so does Nicky – and both insist on sharing secrets with him, making him promise not to tell anyone. Then Nicky goes missing and only Alex thinks he knows where to find her. But is Sam anywhere around to help?