This evening I went to Salford's Lowry Theatre to hear possibly our country's most celebrated and certainly our most well-known extant lexicographer chat to us about her work, her world, and her love of words and their usage.
Standing on the Quays Theatre stage armed with nothing more than a lectern, a screen and powerpoint, Susie Dent, of "dictionary corner" fame, took us through some of the quirkier and more interesting histories of how our words came into being, including why they are spelled the way they are [such as the 'h' in ghost], or why we have such idioms [eg: 'to curry favour'].
Dent comes across on stage, just as you would expect if you have ever seen her on TV's 'Countdown' or the comedy spin-off of 'Catsdown' as it has affectionately become known. Knowledgeable, interesting, chatty, polite, almost a little embarrassed by her own popularity, friendly, and genuine. One could easily imagine just sitting down over a cup of tea and listening to her talk enthusiatically non-stop about words, and it would never get boring. She is, as she jokes about Malaphors, a mine full of information!
There were sadly tantalisingly few Countdown / Catsdown anecdotes or references. Instead Dent concentrated more upon her work as a lexicographer in general, and how words (and especially the German language) have influenced her all her life. Surprisingly though, she is not at all against the 'Americanisation' of British English as I would have expected her to have been. As a great lover of words (and also the German language) myself, I do not appreciate the ever-encroaching menace that is American slang and idiom pervading the British speech. As Dent rightly points out, American English is probably far more authentic historically than our own way of speaking is now, but as an English teacher one has to draw the line somewhere, and to have a student write an essay in both British and American terminology and spelling in the same work is an absolute no-no for me.
There was only one thing this evening though, which for me, sullied an otherwise perfect presentation, and this was Dent's 'celebrity friend questions' on the screen. Not sure what to call them, but basically a few of her celebrity friends such as Rachael Riley, David O'Doherty etc had pre-recorded selfie-videos to ask her a question about language which she then would answer to the audience. This came across as a little awkward, perhaps a little self-aggrandising... "look at who my friends are kind of thing..." although I am absolutely certain it wasn't meant to appear that way. However, one in particular, that selfie-video of Joe Lycett has simply put me off him for life. Until this point I was quite a fan of Lycett and enjoyed his letters and emails to stuffy officials - the mainstay of his comedy. However to see him lying in his bath with a glittering pink face scrub all over and looking most definitely less than his best, was an image that no-one this evening either expected or particularly wanted. The photographs to accompany the 'lecture', and the out-takes of TV I appreciated greatly, including the Michael McIntyre clip since this was both relevant and very funny, but the celebrity question snippets we seriously could have done without.
The evening was highly informative nevertheless, perhaps whizzing through things a little too speedily at times without chance to process the information before being bombarded with more; but this just goes to prove both how knowledgeable and enthusiatic Dent truly is, and the 100 minutes in her company simply was not enough.. we wanted more. A large part of the evening was given over to swear words [perhaps in an effort to 'sex-up' the show somehow], as well as a section devoted to our hatred of all things American - when we learnt that an old English word still exists, 'trumperiness', which means "something very showy but completely worthless".
Dent is an extremely personable and delightful speaker, and despite the few technical hitches we experienced this evening which she coped with adroitly, I certainly hope there was a lot of confelicity as we sat in our 'unmentionable' hufflebuffs [yes, you'll probably need to look those words up - we learnt them this evening!]. And her overriding message was that we really do not need to despair, for English is most certainly not going to the dogs, but is alive and kicking, as we live in lingusitically exciting times, as the crying with laughter emoji was chosen as the most popular word of the year, and tribal dialects and foreign influences continue to mutate and augment our wonderful and weird language, English.
Combining serious linguistics with dollops of humour - yes we did laugh quite loudly and quite a lot! - Dent has found a formula for promoting her work and keeping people engaged and interested in our language which truly works. A very entertaining and edifying evening
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 11/6/19
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