BEACHCOMBER
102 YEARS OLD AND STILL CELEBRATING OLD WORDS...
THE Prime Minister, my old friend Boris Johnson, has been very much in the news recently but there is one aspect of his expertise that has been unfairly overlooked in all the commotion. I refer to his salutary regard for the history of our language.
My first suspicion of this came with his frequent use of the word “backstop”. One has only to look up this word in the Oxford English Dictionary to learn that its earliest known use was in 1819, which strongly suggests that the PM is enthusiastically celebrating its bicentenary.
Admittedly, the word was first used in a cricketing context as a synonym for “back-stop” and had no Irish connotations, but I feel sure the PM knew that. If that is so, I can only say “hip, hip, hooray”, which is a cheer the OED also dates back to 1819.
On the other hand, Boris has not been using the word “zombie” a great deal, which also dates back to 1819 and much used by filmmakers.
The PM seems not to have appreciated that fact, so I have not been completely sure about his use of “backstop” being a similarly bicentennial tribute.
That doubt lingered until almost two weeks ago when he asked Her Majesty to put her Great Seal on a proclamation to prorogue parliament.
Both “Great Seal” and “prorogue” are listed in the OED as having made their first appearances in the English language in 1419, and if one requires any further proof of Boris’s fondness for linguistic centenaries and 600-year anniversaries, I need only mention 1419 was also the year that gave us “admiralty” and the Queen was our Lord High Admiral from 1964 until 2011, when the role passed to the Duke of Edinburgh. The PM’s timing of the prorogation may also have been calculated to frustrate those who have been seeking to have our triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty revoked, for 1419 was the year the word “unrevoked” was first seen.
This may all have led to bewilderment (a word dating back to 1819) among Boris’s foes, who have been reduced to accusing him of being a buzzgloak (a 1819 term meaning pickpocket) running a kleptocracy (1819: government by thieves) in charge of a cacoeconomy (1819: bad economic management). A word of caution: another 1419 verbal first was “havoc”. Perhaps we should exclude that from our celebrations.