The enduring delight of words

 

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! If you say it loud enough, you’ll always sound precocious. I don’t know about you, but words like this evoke in me a fondness and liking to the English language. This particular word takes me to the free-spirited and lively world of Mary Poppins. Eight decades ago, the east wind brought Mary Poppins, the magical nanny to 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Author Pamela L. Travers offers awesome descriptions and adventures of Mary Poppins in a series of eight children’s books. The word ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ is inextricably linked with the film adaptation of these books. Yes, the word is unwieldy, but once you learn it by heart it’s hard to let it slip from memory. A difficult word, but it reflects rather wonderfully the idea of something  extremely good.  When I call out ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, it leaves me feeling good.

This brings to mind Lewis Carroll who is noted for his fanciful worlds and words. Carroll’s Alice books take the readers to Wonderland where everything is unusual and bizarre. There everything is not quite as it seems. Carroll was a prolific minter of words. He coined the word ‘portmanteaus’ to denote words formed by combining two words. Have you ever enjoyed a luxurious late-morning meal with friends? We call that brunch because it is a combination of breakfast and lunch. Have you enjoyed a sweet piece of fruit-flavored ice on a stick? That’s a popsicle, a combo of lollipop and icicle. Have you ever been hooked on episodic television drama? It is called sitcom, that stands for situational comedy. Have you experienced texpectation? It’s the anxiety one feels while waiting for a reply to a text message. Here you are now reading my blog, short for weblog. Are you having fun with the wordplay here? Then you are a brainiac, derived from brain and maniac. Well, the Oxford Dictionary offers a long list of portmanteaus. My favourite portmanteau word is ‘frumious’ which is a combination of fuming and furious. Carroll made up this word to paint a picture of the fictional creature Bandersnatch in his poem Jabberwocky. If ever you find yourself flying into a rage, you could say you are frumious.

Incidentally, the frumious beast Bandersnatch comes to life in other forms today. When written with a lowercase B, bandersnatch is used to describe a grotesque person with uncouth habits. You could call that eccentric, offensive relative a bandersnatch. O what a frabjous noun it is! Frabjous means fantastic or wonderful. It was coined by Carroll too most likely blending fabulous and joyous. He called the day when the ferocious maneater Jabberwock was slain, a Frabjous day. Carroll wrote the poem Jabberwocky with all crazy made-up words. It’s fun to read it out loud and I love the fact that the story is clear despite the strange words. The word ‘jabberwocky’ means nonsensical words. Well, most music releases these days sound like jabberwocky to me. So, next time you’re having a frabjous Sunday having brunch with friends pouring out jabberwocky of minds with nothing important, thank Lewis Carroll for the wonderful linguistic concoctions.

Shakespeare is considered a master word-maker because he gave us nearly 500 words through his plays and sonnets. But John Milton beat him on this front. Milton has more new words attributed to him than any other writer. The area beyond our sky was first called ‘space’ by John Milton in his terrifyingly long novel Paradise Lost. Without him, there would be no terrific, lovelorn, besotted, fragrance, liturgical, didactic, debauchery, and complacency. Geoffrey Chaucer who is known for ‘The Canterbury Tales’ made several words that are in constant use today. Here are some. He used the word ‘twitter’ first to describe a bird’s chirping sound, invented the word ‘feminity’ to imply womanhood, and put to use the word ‘galaxy’ for the first time. There are several writers behind most of our lexicon.

Our word-makers use several methods to derive new words. For several centuries, words have been borrowed from French and Latin. Some words have also been borrowed from Indian languages such as shampoo, jungle, juggernaut, bungalow, and loot. Later we formed words like foodie, smartie, and scrunchie by adding -ie suffix. Our current generation makes social media slang words that looks like a soup made from the English alphabet. Just yesterday, someone hit me with BWL, and I felt like a primitive creature trying to text on a smartphone. Well, it stands for Bursting With Laughter similar to LOL(Laughing Out Loud).  These acronyms are now everywhere on the social media. So, I learnt a few. Now we can do an AMA(Ask Me Anything) about it. Let’s get started, HMU(Hit Me Up). Oh! JK(Just Kidding), BSAAW(Big Smile And A Wink). However, it’s NBD(No Big Deal) there are several websites to help you navigate through these terms alphabetically! MTFBWY(May The Force Be With You-from Star Wars, used to send motivation to someone).

When in need of the right word, sometimes you just need the magic of Mary Poppins. All that it takes is a spark to let euphonious phrases and run-on words just roll off your tongue.

"Well, don't stand there staring. Best foot forward. Spit spot!" ~Mary Poppins