An abuse of wordsmiths walk into a bar... I have of late and wherefore I know not lost all my command of the English language. I am rapidly gaining the reputation as somebody who is guilty of now bludgeoning the English language. Prior to this latest development, I was referred to as somewhat of a wordsmith (which obviously comes from the word blacksmith!) – and as you will find out I am more accurately a wordsmith than others who claim to be a wordsmith! One of the moments where I have perhaps used the wrong words was when I first started at East Coast Radio and was trying to explain/create a picture (with words, on air!) of a really big, hairy and sweaty traffic cop and described him as a ‘burlesque traffic cop’. He would be a remarkable traffic cop – if he was burlesque - he would have to have a feather boa and fishnet stockings which in itself would have been worth remarking upon! And for that reason alone – still just as good as the original Burly traffic cop. And then the other day I was trying to refer to one of the many big words that I had used – such as circumnavigate, asservation and caucus. The rest of the team registered their shock at the words – actually not shock – more like disdain and confusion and so I apologised for using - and I meant to say polysyllabic which is a word which comes from two words…poly which means many and then syllabic which is those-beats-in-a-word-broken-up-by-vowels. But instead of saying polysyllabic, it came out as polysyballic. I knew what I was saying in fact – everyone knew what I was saying and so here we come back to what I meant when I said that I am a wordsmith. People think that wordsmith means an expert with words…no, no, no – let’s go back to what a blacksmith means. People think a blacksmith is an expert in metallurgy. The derivation of the word blacksmith actually comes from the word black – which was the colour of the metal once it had been heated and cooled in water – a film of black coated the metal. Smith came from smite which is to hit with a hard blow. So the blacksmith got his name not from being an expert at metallurgy but because he beat the black metal – moulding and creating the metal into a form he could use and THAT is my personal treatment of the English language and words. I do occasionally beat, bend and mould words to fit into the story I am trying to communicate. Let us not forget that Shakesperae himself was a wordsmith of note often inventing words that he would only ever use once. So within this context, I am glad to count myself as a proud wordsmith!!! Darren Maule.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 18:50:53 +0000
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