Radio
Leicester Thought for the Day
©
John Denney, 26 October 2001
I’ve always
thought of myself as more argute than an apple-knocker, although
I do confess to being prone to lollygagging, although I do hope
I’m not a toplofty. Maybe you think I’m a
blatherskite but I’d deny any accusation of being a
doryphor. If all of this gives you horripilation, then
I’d say you were atrabilious.
“What is
he on about?”, I hear you ask. Well, the good folk who
publish the Oxford English Dictionary are publishing a list of
some Weird and Wonderful Words that we’ve stopped using.
They suggest that these are both useful and interesting words
that are ripe for a come-back. So when I say I’m
argute, I’m shrewd; an apple-knocker is an ignoramus,
lollygagging is laziness, and a toplofty is an arrogant man.
A blatherskite is someone who talks nonsense and a doryphor is a
pedantic critic. Horripilation is when the hairs on the
back of your arms stand up through fear, cold or excitement, and
atrabilious means bad tempered.
Aren’t these
delicious words, ripe to roll around your mouth? I have a
private store of words of my own that I hope one day I’ll be
able to make use of. One is “myristicivorous”
meaning feeding upon nutmegs and another is
“eleemosynary” which means connected to the giving of
alms.
It’s funny
how words go out of fashion. When I was a lad, I was
severely told off if I used the swear word “ruddy”, but
I haven’t heard it used for ages. And did anyone else
with a cold get dosed with “ipecacuanha wine, syrup of
squills and glucose” syrup?
There’s
another word we hear less and less these days. There’s
been a spate of announcements in Parliament recently, with
several ministers correcting things they’ve said, or
explaining why unwelcome announcements have been published at a
time when everyone’s attention has been elsewhere. The
missing word in most of these statements has been
“sorry”.
Sorry is a little
word that means a lot yet is incredibly hard to say. Sorry
is a powerful word. Sorry can restore relationships. Sorry
can increase the sum total of human happiness. I wonder if
there’s someone you need to say sorry to.
Christians know
that saying sorry to God is the first step in restoring our
relationship with Him. It’s even got a special
theological word, it’s so important. We call it
repentance. This means thinking again, turning away from
wrong things, making a fresh start. And whenever someone
repents and asks for forgiveness, the Bible tells us that the
angels in heaven throw a party. Saying sorry to God can
make the welkin ring. Oh - the welkin means the
heavens!