Long Windedness

The first criticism of the “Ranting Nappa” is that it is too long-winded. And of course it should be long-winded, after all that is the essence of ranting.

It helps being English because we have more words to play with than other languages. I read somewhere that Shakespeare used 20,000 words in all his plays; whereas across the channel Racine (or was it Moliere?) only employed 2,000 words. Pity the poor person who did the counting!

The daughter’s godmother’s husband (why don’t I just say “Steve”?) used to say that one of the pleasures of reading The Economist was that every issue included a word that he had never encountered before. I, however, have enough trouble trying to understand (and therefore use correctly) the words I already think I know.

“Trauma” is one. I can handle “traumatic”, but every time I think I understand what it means I find it being used in a different way. Does it mean the mental consequence of grief, or the mental consequence of actual physical pain? I dunno, the word seems to crop up in both contexts.

Boris Johnson and my old workmate Jamie Camplin both use “elide” when they mean “omit” or “strike out” (I think). Maybe I should stop calling this a “blog” and call it a modernist “eclogue” instead. After all it is something of a poetic oration, though not in verse, addressed to shepherds or sheep or something.

Enough of this! Maybe I should start a "Society for the Eliding of Words from the English Language”. Once we have finished with a word, it should be struck off the list thus making the English language more manageable. A good starter would be the word “polytechnic”. This redundant word came to mind while driving past the imposing “University of Roehampton” last week.