Skip to main content

Very Rich and Dishevelled


 

‘Always rich and dishevelled, it (English) is fast becoming very rich and dishevelled.’
William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity p 236).

Dishevelled – what a wonderful word!  It’s one of those pleasant-sounding English words we all use from time to time, readily understood and unquestioned, which refers to an absence, disruption or diminution of a quality described by a never-, or hardly ever, heard adjective.  I mean, have you ever found something hevelled, appointing, traught or even ruptive?  And as for combobulated...

I was reminded of the richness of our language when reading an interview with the admirable Judith Kerr, who's just died.  I've admired her and her books for a long time, thanks yet again to my children for introducing me to someone I wouldn't otherwise have known.  Surely one of the most shevelled of people and fluent in three languages, she was comparing French and English, the former distinguished by its precision, the latter by its wealth of synonyms – well, its richness.  She also contrasted the brevity of French with ‘endless sentences in German.’

Our sentences – mine, to be sure – can go on a bit.  Or be very short.  But we can say something in so many different ways, sometimes clearer than others, which can mean different things, to different people, at different times.  Which brings me back to Empson’s ambiguities.

I found that book difficult, understanding parts for a while and then losing the plot, finding myself presently unable to recall all seven with any clarity.  In another interview, Judith Kerr told the story of Einstein, a family friend, explaining the theory of relativity to her mother, who said she totally understood it at the time, only couldn’t remember it afterwards.

Well, ambiguity is about more than one meaning, if not frank inexactness.
Oh yes, the First Ambiguity was the simple (do I mean that?) metaphor.  And I seem to remember that if you build a story on a metaphor, you create an allegory.  But I might have that wrong, as indeed might be the suggestion that the tiger who came to tea was actually Hitler.

No apologies then for such unkempt thoughts, if not ramblings, which might even be the richer for not being brushed neatly into place.  Dishevelled: from the old French deschevele, the hair being uncombed, it gives an untidy appearance.

Feeling ignorant and foolish, I’ve just googled those seven, and warm to the sixth, which is ‘when a statement says nothing and the readers are forced to invent a statement of their own, most likely in conflict with that of the author.’

Here’s a very short dishevelled poem playing with words – words that aren’t for the most part mine, words unsure of their own meaning and words which could do with a sound brushing.
I wish I could draw like Judith Kerr did, let alone speak three languages fluently.  But it’s good to be reminded of what we do have, in English.


Very rich and dishevelled
not poor at all
we’ve never been hevelled
rather rich as a dish-
evelled. Deliver
us from evell,
may we ever stay evel
I think I meant level
for ever and ever
Amen. Sorry
our men? We shall be rich
very rich and dishevelled
always English
not poor at all
and fast becoming…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rake Daddy Rake

  As with lots of good stories, there are many versions. Basically this one's about a pair of Wiltshire yokels raking a pond for kegs of smuggled brandy.  They feigned lunacy when surprised by the excise men, saying that they were trying to rake out the full moon which was reflected in the water.  Their ruse was successful. The officials had no trouble in deciding they were lunatics, so left them to their raking. Interestingly, the Lunacy Act of 1842 defined a lunatic as someone ‘afflicted with a period of fatuity in the period following a full moon’. I suppose any time falls into the category of a 'period following a full moon'.  As for fatuity, that might include all of us on certain occasions, not least since it's not stated how long 'a period' is.  Perhaps then we're all occasionally lunatic... Be all that as it may, on this occasion the lunatics (I've put inverted commas round the word and taken them out several times) outwitted the sober and sane, ...
5 comments
Read more

A Concatenation of Catchwords

    My daughter’s cat has captivated her family. Even I – being more of a dog person (Timmy our Jack Russell hates cats) – found myself admiring his grace and beauty, and all those skills a cat deploys and enjoys.  Thinking about their cat, I realised how many words contain 'cat'; so it was that this poem took shape. Predictably, I then thought I should write a dog poem. I didn’t actually get very far, having identified only a few dog words: after dogma/dogmatic, dogged, lying doggo and Venetian doges I began to run out. So the dog poem had to wait, its tongue hanging out. But having just gone to my (big) dictionary and found a long list of dog words and phrases, ranging from a certain Shakespearian Dogberry through dog collars, dog days and dog-eared to a dog’s dinner, the Dogstar and dogwatch, I now feel like telling Timmy something can be found to be thrown, and he can wag his tail – even chase a cat.    A Concatenation of Catchwords   Where ...
5 comments
Read more

Bear Necessities

  Coming back to an old work place can be startling, especially if it's been abandoned. Abandoned not just by you, but by those who might have followed. Forsaken for good, even if circumstances had made it impossible to continue. It might not help much to remind oneself that part of the reason for all this was that the work was inefficient, clumsy and had become outmoded. Maybe worst of all would be to find amongst the ruins and abandonment an entirely inappropriate new clueless set of incumbents who could never have understood how hard we'd tried? But perhaps after all, that might be consoling. A comforting realisation that all has not been wasted, that new uses have been found for what we've left behind – in short, that life goes on. We hope. The Forecaster   This was where we lived and worked – a weather station way up north – Wrangel Island, to be precise Kolyuchin – north of Chukotka.   We made observations, carefully measured the various meteorolo...
3 comments
Read more