After writing yesterday’s post, I was thinking about words, about how my perception of them sometimes affects my behaviour.
I understand that this will make me sound like an odd grumpy child, but I’ve never eaten an artichoke, because I think the word ‘artichoke’ is silly. It’s like someone just found any two words – ‘art’ and ‘choke’ – and added a sound inbetween to join them together = ‘art’ ee ‘choke’. If I discovered a new something, and small bug in my back garden, perhaps, and I was honoured with being able to name this new bug, and I said, “Oo, let me think of two words… ‘shoe’ and ‘pen’. They’re good words, I’ll make a sound inbetween to join them together. Shoe-ee-pen.” And I called up the bug people, David Attenborough answers, “Hi David,” I say, quite casual, as if we’re old acquaintances, “I’ve thought of a name for the bug.” “That’s great, Laura,” says David, always pleased to hear from his favourite friend, “What is it?” “Shoe-ee-pen,” I tell him. “I think it’s pretty catchy, don’t you?”
Now I don’t want to put words in David’s mouth but if I paraphrase what I imagine he’d say, it would go something like this – “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Thinking up new names is clearly your weak point. Get off the phone, I’ll think of one.”
But no, when the vegetable discoverer called up and presented the name ‘artichoke,’ it somehow got through. It’s a silly silly word, it’s too clumsy and I don’t like it.
You’ve probably guessed what’s coming next. My annoyance over the word ‘celeriac’. Celery. Ack. Celery. Ack. Is it celery? Then just call it celery. No, it’s something different. It’s the root, or something. I don’t know and I don’t care, I’ve never researched what a celeriac is because I don’t understand why they didn’t just give it a whole new name. Nutmeg and blade mace are the same plant, but they’re not called ‘nutmeg’ and ‘nutmeg-ac’.
So that’s why I’ve never eaten, and will never eat, artichoke or celeriac.
A point of observation. Since starting this blog I have realised that I spend quite a lot of time thinking about words, and I like having imaginary conversations.
lazylauramaisey 