A great feast of languages

Dear Mum,

2012 is the greatest celebration of Britishness: the Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics, the sinking of the Titanic, the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth... All rolled into one, this makes one tea drinking, fish and chips laden, bunting adorned extravaganza which we have great expectations for.

Some organiser of Britain’s 2012 obviously thought, “Hang on. Something’s missing here. It wouldn’t be properly British without the Bard.”

And so Shakespeare is being forced upon the nation.

Particularly on the BBC. Joely Richardson, Trevor Nunn, Ethan Hawke (a bit of an anomaly) have declared their love for Shakespeare as an ever fixed mark.

This is not a complaint. I’m an English literature graduate, and any student of English who doesn’t like Shakespeare made an exceptionally foolish mistake in studying the book-based subject.

Studying English literature without the Bard would be like studying History without knowing of Henry VIII.  Or listening to Janet Street-Porter speak without a flinching grimace on your face.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the BBC’s programming schedule. This you know only too well, as once when I was recently talked to you about the complexities of The Tempest being a Romance rather than a comedy, you interrupted me mid-flow to tell Dad, “I’ve drunk all the wine.”

“What... in the house?!” was his shocked and faintly horrified response.

My comic interjection of “Have we no wine here?”, taken from Coriolanus, was, I noted, not greatly appreciated.

But have no fear. I am not going to dedicate the entirety of this blog to my boy Bill.

I have been thinking that so many of the words and phrases we use are because of Bill and his incomprehensively huge imagination.

A tower of strength. Blinking idiot. Own flesh and blood. Good riddance. It’s Greek to me. Without rhyme or reason. For goodness sake. Stood on ceremony. Vanished into thin air. Laughing stock. Foul play. The game is up. In a pickle. Foregone conclusion.

These are but a few of the phrases we owe to Bill.

Even ‘what the dickens?!’ – which is exceptionally forward thinking of Shakespeare.

The current English language is not, however, thanks to Shakespeare alone.

Obviously, we owe a lot to Latin based languages, to German and, perhaps surprisingly, to India.

BBC news recently highlighted how much we owe to the Indian languages.

Most people, for example, know that ‘pyjamas’ and ‘shampoo’ originated in India.

But did you know that ‘bandana,’ ‘loot,’ ‘veranda’ and ‘dungarees’ all derived from Indian?

I was very surprised by this nugget of knowledge. This same article did, however, diminish my elated discovery by pointing out ‘sari,’ ‘guru’ and ‘yoga’ are all Indian in origin.

Gosh, really?? Next you’ll be telling me ‘croissant’ originated in France, not Cafe Nero, and ‘siesta’ is named after the Spanish afternoon nap as opposed to the name I give to a kip required after a few cocktails.

We are all guilty of doing this – using language wrongly.

Only on Friday, when leaving work did I tell an exhausted colleague to “just try and chillax this weekend.”

Yes. Chillax. I horrified myself.

I know you cannot bear the misused apostrophe, which cafe advertisements, it seems, have a rule stating they must use incorrectly.

“Get you’re coffee here.”

“Delicious cake’s.  

“Your very welcome!”

And then there are those phrases we are all guilty of using, which no longer hold any meaning.

“At the end of the day.”

“As it were.”

“Back in the day.”

You might have seen Miriam Margolyes scold will.i.am on the Graham Norton Show for using the word ‘like’ willy nilly in sentences. She is definitely onto something here.

English is the most widely spoken language in the world and yet we, native English speakers, fail to use is well.

I will be using a similar method from here on because, at the end of the day, I’m sick of it.