Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

I have to say I'm not very familiar with Tom Stoppard's work, though he's been on my list for some time. But after watching this bit, I really want to read or see the whole play, the dialogue (well, it's nearly a monologue) is brilliant (and I think it helps that Benedict Cumberbatch is one of my favourite actors):

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet and in this play they talk abot death and eternity - sounds grave, but seems to be really funny. I must go and watch/ read the whole thing!

How 'Hamlet' really came about...

The Sound Of Words

A very funny Monty Python sketch about the sound of words - I do agree with Graham, some words really do sound woody, while some are more tinny (normally the nasty ones).
I love the sound of words, and often my favourite words are quite onomatopoeic. Even words like hypocrisy have an onomatopoeic quality about them - they do sound rather sly and nasty, don't they? Especially the sibilance at the end, it just makes you want to hiss the word, to spit it out. Wonderful.
The words I generally tend to like use sibilance in combination with long vowels, like thrust or thigh...they sound quite heavy too, due to the 'th' - and they often are 'naughty' (as Graham says, intercourse, very woody).

Of course not all of you share my love for these words (branch is another one...or inebriate. Heaven.), maybe you prefer the tinny ones? Whatever the preference, the sound of words is what makes me happy, and I always find it interesting to hear them in different accents and dialects (I love for example the northern vowel pronounciations).
I also always find a special joy in swearwords. My favourites are the very versatile f-word (it can be used as adjective, noun, verb...) and the lovely 'twat'. The person who I love to hear swearing most is Terry Hall, for some reason it just sounds brilliant, I could listen to it for ages. And Stephen Fry (there he is again), because with him you don't really notice it's swearing.

Well, I better stop here, before I offend anyone who doesn't like swearing. I love it - well, the sound of it.

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."

- Stephen King

Orwell and Newspeak

George Orwell is my favourite author/writer. By far. His style of writing (not only in his books, but also in his essays - they are brilliant, Why I Write or his essay on the common toad) is rather direct and simple in its observance of everyday life, but often also heartbreakingly beautiful - precisely because it is so simple. His similes are always spot on, and although thankfully I grew up in a secure and comparatively wealthy environment, his description of poverty in Keep the Aspidistra Flying made me feel like I was experiencing it myself, like I knew exactly how it feels to be poor. I think the beauty of his writing lies in its simplicity - or maybe I should rather say accessibility, because it is not always easy to write like this. He never used two words where one would do, and although I usually love rich language, absurdly creative metaphors and all that, he never fails to touch me exactly where he intended to. Curiously, he himself admitted freely to the fact that often, words cannot express a concept satisfactorily (see his essay New Words) and he had six basic rules for writers (find a nice article on it here):

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.                                      
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.      

Perhaps that's the reason why I like him so much.                                                                                                          Although it might be a bit clichéd, my favourite Orwell book is 1984, which is also my favourite book of all times. I must have read it about four or five times now, and it still scares me. On the one hand of course because looking back I can see how much of it actually became true in the Sovjet Union and East Germany (and the recent hacking by the NSA - after this came out the sales of 1984 increased by 7%). On the other hand because of the whole Newspeak concept. No matter how often I have read it already, reading this passage always sends shivers down my spine:

"…the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought (…) we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it (…) Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller (…) by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now"

Luckily, we still have rather a lot of words to express our thoughts with, and although we're approaching 2050 with rapid speed, plusgood and doubleplusgood are still only fiction. Nevertheless, the sheer possibility of Newspeak is terrifying. It also links to the concept of Linguistic Relativity (click here for wikipedia's summary - basically it just means that language affects how we think and see the world) and Orwell makes a really good (though frightening) point.
The basic principle of Newspeak is to eliminate all Synonyms and Antonyms, as well as concepts that contradict the regime's beliefs. Orwell might have got the idea from Basic English, which he promoted until 1944 (and then rejected it). For a better idea of how he thought about the English language, I suggest you read his essay Politics and the English Language.

Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair by the way) also had a significant influence on our everyday language, especially through 1984. Apart from inspiring the term Orwellian (roughly: describion of methods of control via propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past), he either coined, inspired or popularised a lot of words and terms in today's language. Here a few examples:

Big Brother I think we all have heard about the reality TV show, but it's also used in the political sense to describe surveillance etc
Doublethink simultaneously accepting two contradictory beliefs
Doublespeak does not appear in 1984, but is obviously inspired by Doublethink - deliberately obscuring or distorting the meaning of something, for example through euphemism
Thoughtcrime having controversial or socially/politically inacceptable thoughts, also used theologically (e.g. disbelief) or to describe the rejection of moral/ social principles
Room 101 now a popular TV show, a place where extremely unpleasant things happen
2+2=5 originally used by the Sovjet Union to promote that their 5 year plan could be completed in 4 years, also appearing in Notes From Underground by Dostoyevsky - obviously illogical statement, but (in this context) if the majority believes it/ the law states it, it must be true
Memory hole any mechanism to alter or delete inconvenient/incriminating data to make it seem as if it never happened (e.g. the Chinese Gouvernment's attempt to cover up the Tiananmen Square Massacre)

So yes, I think it's safe to say that Orwell was one of the most influencial authors of the 20th century - and one of the best, in my opinion. I would strongly recommend his lesser-known books and his essays, though to start I think you can't go wrong with Animal Farm and most certainly not with 1984. I think I might just re-read it...again.

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

Maybe some of you have heard of BBC Radio 4's excellent programme I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. If not, go and have a listen (some of it is on youtube), it is absolutely divine!
Anyway, the whole show is sort of based on wordplay and manipulating language, but they have one section called Uxbridge English Dictionary which is my absolute favourite. In it the panel (Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and various guests) take any word from the English language and give it a new meaning - sounds fairly straightforward and boring, but I promise you it is hilarious - and extremely clever! Here is an example, featuring one entry from Stephen Fry (he seems to pop up in an awful lot of my posts) that has become somewhat legendary.

The show has been running since 1972, initially with the wonderful late Humphrey Lyttelton as host, now with Jack Dee. Past series are available on CD.

Fry's Planet Word II

The DVD arrived this morning and I've already watched the first two episodes - it is absolutely marvellous !!! Extremely interesting, highly informative, and - for someone like me who absolutely loves everything to do with language - at times truly beautiful.

In the first episode, Stephen explores how language makes us different from other mammals and how we acquire language. As I did English Language at college, I knew quite a few things already (thanks to my teachers Paul & Tony), but it nevertheless was fascinating. I was particularly absorbed by the bit about sign language. Stephen talked to an English and a German sign language speaker about the differences of their country's respective sign language (they do have different signs for Hitler for a start, not surprisingly really...Germans think of Hitler in a different way than English people, I would assume. Well, I know they do) and how new words and names enter their language. For example, the sign for Barack Obama is an 'O' followed by the hand imitating a flag (for America)... and Madonna is indicated by miming pointed breasts, which I thought was hilarious.

The second episode is about different accents and how language gives us identity. I especially liked the bit about Irish, as I think it a beautiful language that I would love to learn one day (well better earlier than later, as we all know learning new languages becomes harder the older we get). The bit about the French Academy made me a little angry, but I suppose that's just the coming together of my belief that regional accents are important and beautiful and my general hate for everything French. I was however quite surprised that I was able to understand bits of both an obscure French dialect (the name escapes me at the moment) and Basque - so five years of Latin and two of Spanish weren't wasted.

Anyway, I'm sure I will have watched the remaining episodes before this week is over (which means by tomorrow) and I strongly recommend it to anybody even remotely interested in language (not just English). It is also really funny at times. Go and watch!

Poetry and Punk

One of my favourite poems is Twat by John Cooper Clarke (yes, you can like him AND love Shakespeare and Keats and Wordsworth...) He started off during the punk era in the late 70s, so of course there's a lot of attitude in his poems (and his speeded-up, slurred delivery), but some of his work is great. Especially Twat.

It is hilarious, very clever and just the perfect put-down. You can quote it to insult someone and they probably wouldn't even notice. It's just simply a very good poem. And 'twat' is one of my favourite words.

Like a Night Club in the morning, you’re the bitter end.
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you’re clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrows
are lousy coz of you.
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain
You’re certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.
You’re like a dose of scabies,
I’ve got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!
People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You’ve got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.
Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death at a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our smartie,
you’re no use to anyone.
Like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive’s face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race
You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.
You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You’re heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.
Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.
What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT.

Windmills Of Your Mind

I feel a lot of people are very quick to dismiss song lyrics as something low, only suited to confused dental-braced adolescent girls. For some lyrics this is certainly right, but often enough they are more like poems set to music, and a song can win me over just for its brilliant lyrics.

One song with in my opinion extremely beautiful yet poignant lyrics is Windmills Of Your Mind, the English lyrics written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Originally sung by Noel Harrison for the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, it has been covered by many artists, including Dusty Springfield and Sting.

round, like a circle in a spiral
like a wheel within a wheel
never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
like a snowball down the mountain
or a carnival balloon
like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon
like a clock whose hands are sweeping
past the minutes of its face
and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind
like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
down a hollow to a cavern
where the sun has never shone
like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
like a clock whose hands are sweeping
past the minutes of its face
and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind
keys that jingle in your pocket
words that jangle in your head
why did summer go so quickly 
was it something that you said?
lovers walk along the shore
and leave their footprints in the sand
is the sound of distant drumming
just the fingers of your hand?
pictures hanging in the hallway and the fragments of a song
half remembered names and faces
but to whom do they belong?
when you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
that the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair

like a circle in a spiral
like a wheel within a wheel
never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
as the images unwind like the circles that you find
in the windmills of your mind

My favourite version however is by The Colourfield, the third band of ex-Specials frontman Terry Hall. I'm not just saying that because Hall is one of my favourite artists, but because I feel they do the feeling of the song justice. They slowed down the pace and give it a new dimension, turning it from a love song into a sad but apt descripion of mental depression (well, in my ears anyway). 

Hay Festival

It's on again and FINALLY I'm in the UK while it's on. And typically, tickets to see Stephen Fry talking about Shakespeare are sold out. Well, I'm going anyway, just because it is a brilliant festival. I think Bill Clinton once called it 'The Woodstock of the mind' which I think is rather nice.

To comfort me that I won't see Master Fry, here's a brilliant bit from the festivals a few years ago.

'A letter to oneself' It's beautiful

grammar is important

that could be me to be honest

The ambiguity of words...

.... literature teachers love them. But sometimes it is best not to look too much for a hidden meaning, as demonstrated by the genius of comedy, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. I'm glad even those Oxbridge people agree with me that sometimes, you can overanalyse words.

"If one is to think and feel truly, one’s words must embody as well as represent the ideas they convey."

I know it's not April 7th, but there's always time for a little bit of/about Wordsworth.
From the Oxford Dictionary's blog

What is the worth of words?

(Cartoon by John Taylor)

7 April marked 243 years since William Wordsworth was born. The very name of this most appropriately named poet embodies his concern for language: what is the true worth of words? As we raise a glass to celebrate the birth of this mock humorously self-styled ‘simple water-drinking bard’ (who, let’s not forget, has written what could be described as a pub crawl in rhyme), let us take a brief look at how Wordsworth used language and the impact it had on the world.
In the famous Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800) Wordsworth instinctively and intellectually rejects the use of what he saw as ornate and essentially dishonest language that had hitherto been used by poets: “I have proposed to myself to imitate, and as far as possible, to adopt, the very language of men.” Very laudable, but even the most academic and ardent Wordsworthian could not really say that Wordsworth actually writes as the local working people around him would have spoken, and certainly not the speech that would have been familiar to such fellow north-countrymen. (Although it is interesting to note, as the poet Tony Harrison so eloquently has, that Wordsworth’s rhymes have a distinctly northern flavour to them, for example in rhyming ‘water’ with ‘matter’.)
Yes, it is true that the poems in Lyrical Ballads rarely make use of lengthy Latinate words or inverted word order, but it cannot be said that a work like ‘Tintern Abbey’ reflects the language of ordinary people. How many of us would describe our neighbour’s hedges as ‘little lines of sportive wood run wild’? (Perhaps we should.) The individual words are simple but the phrasing is not, as in order to articulate the complexities of the poet’s mind Wordsworth needs to use highly ornate structures which are often at odds with the way most people speak.
Even the voices of the characters are not imbued with any flavour of their individual identity, geographic or social. Farmer Harry Gill does not cry out ‘How’ee, ars geet cauld’ (more’s the pity) but the more genteel ‘Harry Gill is very cold’; Westmoreland housewife Betty Foy asks ‘What can I do to ease your pain?’ rather than something like the more earthy ‘Hareet, can ars do owt?’ We hear of ‘our rustic dialect’ in ‘Michael’ but not from the lips of the old shepherd himself; unlike his inspiration Robert Burns, Wordsworth chooses to use a more considered, almost biblically reminiscent English, even for reported speech.
However, you could say that by using a more accepted and universally recognized form of English Wordsworth is consciously placing his characters alongside other great figures in literature: dialect speech has so often been used primarily for comic effect that it is difficult to dissociate it from humour and thereby imbue its speaker with sincerity and dignity. By using rustic characters to people his poems, Wordsworth is already taking a risk as they are “of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry.” But unlike Burns, Wordsworth seems to use standard English to ‘elevate’ his characters, whereas Burns uses the language of his peers as a literary language in its own right.
As well as reacting against literary conventions, Wordsworth is also influenced by the ballad tradition: using everyday language to tell everyday stories. As these were not usually regarded as ‘literature’, Wordsworth is one of the first people to take this form into serious poetry, as Burns had done a few years earlier. Wordsworth also avoids using too many references to classical antiquity, so it is possible to understand the narrative and philosophy of his poetry without a classical education.
Wordsworth’s attitude towards the power of language can be summed up in his use of one word: statesmen. Many of us may only recognize this word within a political context, but Wordsworth uses it to mean ‘yeoman’ (or‘man with an estate’), a meaning chiefly confined now to historical uses. This is not a neologism on Wordsworth’s part, but this usage occurs rarely outside of the 18^th- and early 19^th-century counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and parts of Lancashire (which today make up Cumbria), where statesmen, hereditary holders within the lord’s territory of small parcels of land, were particularly successful in maintaining their independence and land during this period. Consciously or otherwise, Wordsworth uses this word to describe men who are ‘statesman-like’ in their bearing, imbuing them with a sense of distinction, dignity, and authority where others may have seen them as uncultured and therefore uninteresting.
Wordsworth’s assertion that “the naked and native dignity of man” links all humanity is central to understanding this: we have all of us one human heart, and the language of the heart is liberating, equalizing and unifying. All can think and feel the same thoughts and emotions. For Wordsworth, language is not merely a garment to clothe meaning, but remains intrinsic to the message contained within it. If one is to think and feel truly, one’s words must embody as well as represent the ideas they convey. Ultimately, Wordsworth seeks to place all men and meaning as universally accessible and dignified – humour may occasionally be sacrificed, but the goal is a noble and inspiring one, relevant today.

Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal

Here is possibly the greatest example of sustained irony ever, A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (click to read).

In this biting satirical essay he offers a solution to the economic troubles in empoverished Irish society of the 18th century. For about the first third of the essay, everything seems quite rational and logical, but then... well, read for yourselves!

If you enjoyed it, maybe you'd enjoy this too - an episode of BBC 4's In Our Time about A Modest Proposal


A little SPOILER here, but this sentence is just too good. That's how you do criticism!

"I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children."

Fry's Planet Word

I found a nice little essay on the love of language by the master himself, Stephen Fry.
Read the essay here

I cannot begin to describe how much I agree with everything he says, though of course I'm nowhere near his level of literacy and eloquence. The article is from 2011, when Stephen did a 5 piece documentary on language. Unfortunately I haven't seen it yet (apart from the odd youtube clips) but it sounds fantastic and I'm going straight to amazon to get it!
Stephen Fry + language = heaven, as far as I'm concerned

Oh and while I'm at it, I can only urge you to watch this little gem, it's hilarious (and quite deep if you actually listen to what's being said rather than just how it's said - which is bloody funny)

Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

I thought I should perhaps explain my URL to all the non-linguistists out there (not that I am exactly one myself. My teacher introduced it to me).
Noam Chomsky, linguist and founder of the Nativist Approach to how we acquire language came up with this sentence.

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

What he wanted to show with it was our innate ability to use grammar and the 'deep structure' every language has. Semantically, the sentence makes no sense at all - how can something be green and colourless at the same time? Or sleep furiously? How can an idea sleep at all? But gramatically, the sentence makes perfect sense (and even contains all the major word classes noun, verb, adjective and adverb). So there.

I admit it is a bit pompous and cumbersome as an URL and that there is an 'u' missing in 'furiously', but all other good domains were already taken (even this one with the 'u' in!).
Plus, I felt awfully clever and educated.

EDIT: Obviously, I've changed it now, the missing 'u' bothered me too much.

I found this quote hanging outside my literature room some months ago,
and I just think it is the perfect introduction to this blog

These words of mine are no stones
To pick and throw at passing fancies.
They're yeast-sounds, bread waiting
To be broken whilst they're still fresh.
Leave them overnight and they become
Hard as rusting bolts, not fit for
eating. My verse is harboured
in lover's hearts.
Expose it to the indifferent world busy
with its traffic and it chokes to death.
Like a fish it swims in the lover's blood.
Land it on the rocks and it gasps for life
The slowly dies, cold and stiff as an icicle.
You must be rich with metaphors, like
An ore of gold waiting to be ruined
If you are to digest my words
When they're fresh. Know this,
My friend, it's nothing new.
These words are turned to bliss when you
Read them with your own imagining heart.

Divan 981