Attempt at an Aphorism

A surprise is only a surprise if it's a surprise that it's a surprise.

Bring Back Donnybrook!

I'm reading a book published in 1973 that includes the line: "He had no need to be on the faculty to join in the donnybrooks which plagued the early history of the Catholic University of America..."

Have you ever heard the word "donnybrook"? It means a fight, of one kind or another, and it's derived from Donnybrook in Dublin. This area was once the location of Donnybrook Fair, an annual event which became infamous for drunkenness and fighting. Hence the word.

Today Donnybrook is a very gentrified area, the home of Ireland's national broadcaster. It's in the postcode Dublin 4, which has been a metonym for snooty Irish liberalism for decades. 

I'd never heard the term "donnybrook" until I encountered it in the writings of G.K. Chesterton. I certainly never hear it in Irish discourse. It's somewhat surprising to meet it in a book written in 1973, although the fact that it's an American book written about an Irish-American might have influenced that.

I think we should revive the word! In fact, I want to revive almost every archaic word I come across. I might set up an Association for the Revival of Words That Have Fallen Into Desuetude. Membership is free and open to everybody. All you need to do is repeat the phrase "brown study" three times with your hand over your heart.

Favourite Poems: My Own John Poynz by Sir Thomas Wyatt

A while back I posted a list of my fifty favourite poems, and this was one of them. It's one of the more obscure poems on the list (most of them are not obscure at all). And even this isn't all that obscure, because I encountered it in the Norton Anthology of Poetry. Still, it's not a poem you ever hear quoted.

I have a strange kink whereby I don't want to know too much about the context of my favourite poems. I've read about Sir Thomas Wyatt before, but I don't remember many of the details. I think he was in love with Anne Boleyn, and wrote an excellent sonnet about her. Or was that his son, also called Thomas Wyatt? Or his father, also called Thomas Wyatt? I don't know. I'm pretty sure there were at least two Thomas Wyatts. One of them was involved in a rebellion and executed, or maybe both. You may be itching to enlighten me on this score. If you do, I promise you I'll have forgotten your clarification within hours.

Anyway, I think this is a very fine poem. It's similar to "The Fisherman" by W.B. Yeats. It has the same resounding and scornful invective against degenerate cultural tendencies, the same proud insistence on standing apart rather than running with the mob. I love the way it slowly but steadily gains pace, as example follows example and image follows image.

There are only one or two natural virtues that I've had all my life, but one of them is the sort of disdain for wealthy and powerful elites that Wyatt expresses here. I'm not talking about envy or resentment, but rather a complete lack of interest. I'm not one of those conservatives who delights in all the trappings of royalty and aristocracy. I'm all for a ceremonial monarchy, but all the splendour and majesty leaves me cold. Plutocracy has the same effect on me.

I love the savage irony of:

None of these points would ever frame in me;

My wit is naught; I cannot learn the way.

Being an anglophile, I also love the tirade against decadent continentals, compared to the yeomanly virtue of a true Englishman. And I also like the Catholic-bashing. Religious and national allegiances shouldn't come into our enjoyment of poetry. (Yes, there's a bit of a contradiction in that paragraph.)

My favourite line in the whole poem is: But here I am in Kent and Christendom. For years that's the line that's come to me when I'm enjoying the sensation, or imagining the sensation, of feeling safely ensconced on home ground, in some way or other.

There is a whole genre of poems like this, in which a poet appeals to a friend to enjoy simple joys, far from the madding crowd. There's Milton's "Lawrence, Of Virtuous Father Virtuous Son" and Tennyson's "To The Rev. F.D. Maurice". And probably others, although I can't think of them.

Mine own John Poynz by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law:
It is not for because I scorn or mock
The power of them, to whom fortune hath lent
Charge over us, of right, to strike the stroke.
But true it is that I have always meant
Less to esteem them than the common sort,
Of outward things that judge in their intent
Without regard what doth inward resort.
I grant sometime that of glory the fire
Doth twyche my heart. Me list not to report
Blame by honour, and honour to desire.
But how may I this honour now attain,
That cannot dye the colour black a liar?
My Poynz, I cannot from me tune to feign,
To cloak the truth for praise without desert
Of them that list all vice for to retain.
I cannot honour them that sets their part
With Venus and Bacchus all their life long;
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart
I cannot crouch nor kneel to do so great a wrong,
To worship them, like God on earth alone,
That are as wolves these sely lambs among.
I cannot with my word complain and moan,
And suffer nought, nor smart without complaint,
Nor turn the word that from my mouth is gone.
I cannot speak and look like a saint,
Use willes for wit, and make deceit a pleasure,
And call craft counsel, for profit still to paint.
I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer
With innocent blood to feed myself fat,
And do most hurt where most help I offer.
I am not he that can allow the state
Of him Caesar, and damn Cato to die,
That with his death did scape out of the gate
From Caesar's hands (if Livy do not lie)
And would not live where liberty was lost;
So did his heart the common weal apply.
I am not he such eloquence to boast
To make the crow singing as the swan;
Nor call the liond of cowardes beasts the most
That cannot take a mouse as the cat can;
And he that dieth for hunger of the gold
Call him Alexander; and say that Pan
Passeth Apollo in music many fold;
Praise Sir Thopias for a noble tale,
And scorn the story that the Knight told;
Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale;
Grin when he laugheth that beareth all the sway,
Frown when he frowneth and groan when is pale;
On others' lust to hang both night and day:
None of these points would ever frame in me.
My wit is nought—I cannot learn the way.
And much the less of things that greater be,
That asken help of colours of device
To join the mean with each extremity,
With the nearest virtue to cloak alway the vice;
And as to purpose, likewise it shall fall
To press the virtue that it may not rise;
As drunkenness good fellowship to call;
The friendly foe with his double face
Say he is gentle and courteous therewithal;
And say that favel hath a goodly grace
In eloquence; and cruelty to name
Zeal of justice and change in time and place;
And he that suffer'th offence without blame
Call him pitiful; and him true and plain
That raileth reckless to every man's shame.
Say he is rude that cannot lie and feign;
The lecher a lover; and tyranny
To be the right of a prince's reign.
I cannot, I; no, no, it will not be!
This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves that way, as thou mayst see,
A chip of chance more than a pound of wit.
This maketh me at home to hunt and to hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit;
In frost and snow then with my bow to stalk;
No man doth mark whereso I ride or go:
In lusty leas at liberty I walk.
And of these news I feel nor weal nor woe,
Save that a clog doth hang yet at my heel.
No force for that, for it is ordered so,
That I may leap both hedge and dyke full well.
I am not now in France to judge the wine,
With saffry sauce the delicates to feel;
Nor yet in Spain, where one must him incline
Rather than to be, outwardly to seem:
I meddle not with wits that be so fine.
Nor Flanders' cheer letteth not my sight to deem
Of black and white; nor taketh my wit away
With beastliness; they beasts do so esteem.
Nor I am not where Christ is given in prey
For money, poison, and treason at Rome—
A common practice used night and day:
But here I am in Kent and Christendom
Among the Muses where I read and rhyme;
Where if thou list, my Poinz, for to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time.

One Word That Makes Me Shun Any Video, Blog Post, etc. (When it's the First Word in the Title.)

"How..."

Especially when the word doesn't really apply and it's just an attemptedly cute appeal to self-improvement. ("How C.S. Lewis changed my life", that kind of thing.)

Exceptionally Exciting-- a Repeat

(This blog post is less than a year old, but I'm repeating it because its topic has been much on my mind today. Hey, it's blog, I can do that.)

As I've mentioned before, I browse the website TV Tropes a lot. A lotta lot. It might be my favourite way of relaxing, decompressing, kicking back, and so forth. And it has been for at least a decade.

Today, I came across this sentence on TV Tropes: "A San Francisco youth made national news when saw the movie Rocky eighty-one times (and possibly more) during its first-run release in 1976 and 1977. After the twenty-seventh viewing, the theatre started letting him in for free."

I don't know why, but this sort of thing makes the Christmas tree of my imagination light up, flash, and play holiday tunes.

What sort of thing do I mean? Well, anything to do with an exception, an irregular situation, a freebie, an informal arrangement, or an anomaly.

For instance: I once read that the Abbey National Building Society, having a branch very close to the (only ever fictional) address of 221B Baker Street, employed a full-time secretary to answer Sherlock Holmes's mail. And this is true!

For instance: one year in secondary school, when I was about sixteen, a quirk of the timetable meant that we had an English class sandwiched between two physical education classes. So the teacher let us stay in our gym clothes for that class.

For instance: I once went to a takeaway and bought some garlic sauce. Just that. The guy behind the counter threw in a good amount of chips, free of charge and unasked.

For instance: on Liechtenstein's national day, all the citizens are invited to a party in the Prince's castle.

For instance: once, when I was a kid, my school organised a treasure hunt. I remember me and my brothers going into the vegetable shop in the shopping centre to ask about a particular clue. The shopkeeper gave us a mysterious, knowing look, reached under the counter, and handed us an envelope. This completely floored me.

For instance: in the film Wayne's World 2, the protagonist says: "Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs, you were issued with it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide."

Please note, the appeal I'm talking about doesn't just apply to freebies or special privileges. It can go the opposite way, too. It pleases me when someone has a special power or obligation.

I've just discovered, from a quick internet search, that barmen don't really have the right to confiscate someone's car keys. But apparently, businesses did once have the right to cut up your declined credit card. Both ideas appeal to me.

When I was a kid, and I went a long time between haircuts (as I always did), I'd regularly get this taunt from other kids: "The barber has a warrant for your arrest." The idea always charmed me.

In 2003, Coke was banned from being sold in UCD Student's Union shops because of controversies about their operations in Colombia. That was lifted more recently, but now it's banned because the sugar content is too high. It's a bummer that you can't get a Coke in UCD when you want one, but I enjoy the anomaly.

Speaking of Coke, for many years it was forbidden to use the name Pepsi in their corporate headquarters in Atlanta. You had to say "the imitator" instead. (For real. Look it up, if you don't believe me.)

In New Jersey, you can't operate petrol pump yourself-- you have to get a petrol station attendant to do it.

And then there are the anomalies of convention. If children were to knock on your door and demand sweets on 364 days of the year, you'd send them packing. But on Halloween night, it's almost mandatory to indulge them. (Or, as the carol puts it about another season, "Once in a year it is not thought amiss to visit our neighbours and sing out like this...")

Then there are some interesting rules and arrangements in the history of cinema, often done as publicity stunts. For instance, Alfred Hitchcock's rule that nobody would be admitted into Psycho after the film had begun. (Back then, films played on a loop.)

Then there are William Castle's various gimmicks, such as "fright insurance" for the audience.

In the 1967 film Wait Until Dark, the gimmick was that cinemas turned off all their lights (except the EXIT signs) in the final scene, which is set in complete darkness.

Anyway, you either get what I mean now, or you don't. Does anyone share this fascination, or this pleasure? I'd be interested to know that.

Obviously, this goes a long way towards explaining this blog post!

Do you think this is a stupid blog post? It might be, but I bet there's none other like it out there...

Why Do Words Fall Out of Use?

I've just been reading a book from 1900, and it contains this sentence: "Vivid memories of those days survive, coloured by Bible stories, conned and repeated, and the prints and the chromos which were a part of the familiar apparatus."

Let's put aside the interesting word "chromo", which presumably means colour illustration. I'm interested in the phrase "conned and repeated".

You probably know the archaic meaning of 'con', in this context. It meant to learn by rote, to swot up on, to cram. But why has it ceased to be use in this sense? Why does any word or term cease to be used?

I mean, think about it. Hundreds of millions of people are speaking English every day, and using it to describe any number of ideas and activities and events. Shouldn't every possible resource be drawn upon repeatedly, in that great babble? Isn't that what you'd expect?

Was it perhaps the pejorative meaning of con, as in "to swindle, to trick", that made people back away from using it in the other sense?

But how does that explain all the other archaic terms that just disappear? (I think the one I lament the most might be "brown study": "I fell into a brown study", that is, a reverie.)

A little further on in the book, I came across another word that has fallen out of use: "collegian". There seems no earthly reason why that one should have disappeared, or all but disappeared.

Every time you open your mouth you are shaping the language. Think about that! (Unless, of course, you are opening it to put a doughnut inside, an operation of which I heartily approve.)

Look Thy Last

This stanza regularly intrudes itself upon my thoughts:

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.

For years, I've thought it was Thomas Hardy, but it's actually Walter de la Mare-- as I've just discovered.

More recently I've been thinking: why just "lovely"? Look thy last on all things seems better advice, and something I'm increasingly trying to do. Even though I have no reason not to expect two or three more decades on this earth, or perhaps even more.