The word that dares not speak its name
"When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it
to mean, no more and no less"
A well-known ovoid verbal bully
Words in general do not have an easy time of it; the pay is
low, the job satisfaction even lower, and the security of employment frankly
chancy - when 'fewmets', for example, started his career, everyone thought
that there were really longterm prospects in being used to describe the mess
that deer leave behind them, but he and 'horse-apples' are now brushed aside,
while 'road-kill' and 'pothole' reign supreme.
Normally, one can only weep (observing a minute's silence is counter-productive),
but occasionally one comes across a case of injustice so flagrant and redolent
of prejudice that one is moved to action, or at least to a stiff note of protest.
While browsing (as one does) through the Oxford English Dictionary, that famous
relictuary of the great, the good and the gallimaufric, I recently discovered,
with a frisson of horror, that 'floccipaucinihilipilification' had no home
of his own, and had to turn to his namby-pamby cousin 'floccinaucinihilipilification'
(an old Eton man, apparently - and we all know what that means) for a place
to lay his head.
This is quite simply outrageous. Is this why we pay taxes, that the gilded
upper classes should enjoy Grace and Favour accommodation, while their poor
but worthy relatives go from 'denigration' to 'rubbishing' looking for somewhere
to spend the night? If this were not a serious tract on social injustice,
I would be tempted to make the bitter jest that 'floccipaucinihilipilification'
has been floccipaucinihilipilificated!
There can be no good reason for this; though 'floccinaucinihilipilification'
is the elder by a few years, the OED grudgingly admits that he was only once
used by Southey, and hyphenated for easy reading to boot, whereas 'floccipaucinihilipilification'
appears 3 times in Scott. Even if literary merit were a criterion - and if
it were, the OED would be a lot thinner - what has Southey written to compare
to Scott's famous tale of agricultural life, Ivanhoe?
I might be tempted to suspect that old grudges and resentments still fester
from the great linguistic wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Burns has been
forgiven, even though he recited 'Fair fa' your honest sonsie face' and made
them eat haggis in the very drawing rooms of London, but the rival warcries
of 'Down with the pauci Scots, What!' and 'Git loast, you floccin' English
jessies' have resounded across too many battlefields and football pitches.
Unfortunately, I can't find any other evidence of these wars and I don't work
in TV.
But it is time to put aside ancient history and myth and seek a new age of
reconciliation. I call on all my readers to write to their local dictionary;
if lack of space is their excuse, point out that they are full of words like
'cat', 'dog' and 'recursive' that no one ever looks up. Further, I call on
you to actively seek opportunities for using 'floccipaucinihilipilification'
in daily life. You can start with this page, and move on to the Windows/Java/programming language flamewars.
Help a grand old word and restore it to its place as the Doyen of the English Language!