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Headline:

A way with words

Synopsis:

Lexical wizard Henry Hitchings on the crazy history of our language

'Margarine' comes from the Persian word for pearl, Edmund Spenser coined 'blatant' and many of our naval terms come from the Dutch.


It's rather nerve-racking, interviewing an acknowledged master of the English language. I tell Henry Hitchings that I feel as though I'll have to take extra care with my choice of words. "Don't," he says briskly, as he ushers me into his book-lined 13th-floor Bermondsey flat. Fortunately, his attitude to language is anything but stuffy, snobbish or prescriptive.

His latest book, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, has just won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize for writers under 35 (past winners include VS Naipaul, Angela Carter, David Hare and AL Kennedy). A strong shortlist included The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, which won this year's Man Booker prize, Ross Raisin's acclaimed novel, God's Own Country, and Adam Fould's book-length narrative poem, The Broken Word. However, Henry Sutton, this year's chair of judges, says that it was the only book to win "universal praise" from the judging panel. "It reminds us of just how important etymology is to understanding the history of a fractured world," he comments.

Publish date:

30 November 2008

Author:

Suzi Feay

Source:

Independent on Sunday

Media:

Access Interview