IT'S A complicated world, this world of words," writes the learned author of this delightful and instructive compendium of his etymological columns in this newspaper.
Diarmaid O Muirithe is Senior Lecturer in Irish at University College, Dublin. His erudition extends backwards to the histories of Old English, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old German (Middle and High varieties), Icelandic, Old French, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanskrit, Sino Japanese, the languages of the Narragansett and Algonquin "Indians" of North America, and even the dialects and slang that colourfully deviate therefrom.
Etymology reveals words' meanings right down to their roots, in the way that archaeological digs reveal historical layers of civilisations. With the assistance of an ardent etymological detective of the likes of O Muirithe, the lay reader can savour the accretions that enrich words with the nuances of poetry.
He relates his esoteric findings in the amiably informal manner of a common room raconteur the senior common room, of course, which provides port of the best vintage. He is a genially entertaining, scholarly companion who enjoys sharing linguistic jokes. However, do not underrate his essential seriousness; he does not tolerate abuse of words. When he encounters it, he expresses his indignation with vehemence.
Typically, O Muirithe calls the false Gaelicisation of crack as craic as a "hideous neologism" which, he says, sets his teeth on edge. Although he gives credit to lexicographers where credit is due, he berates them when they conclude, as they do too often, that certain words are "of unknown origin". "When in doubt," he recommends, "check the dialects." He demonstrates that the origins of obscure words are often to be found in specialised works such as the English Dialect Dictionary and the Journal of the Co Loath Archaeological and Historical Society.
Many readers of The Irish Times who love words, especially unusual ones, and are curious about where they come from, send O Muirithe specimens for identification. He rarely has to admit defeat. By the way, in this collection of columns, at least, there are more enquiries from women than from men. The ratio presumably proves that these women correspondents are short of words or that they are not.
He is indiscriminately gender friendly, manifesting no old or new fashioned bigotry. In a column headed "Political Correctness of Plain Lunacy", he deplores madish euphemisms and tears them from the realities they disguise.
He presents some wonderful samples of political correctness. It has been proposed that "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse should be renamed Nutritional Deprivation, State of Billigerency, Widespread Transmittable Condition and Terminal Inconvenience".
There are some choice tongue in cheek quotations from Bina Goldfield, who, favouring "wofem" insteady of "man", published The Efemcipated English Handbook, "This wofem," O'Muirithe writes, "has . . . given us the following beauties: abdofem, afemdfemt, comfemcefemt, femagefemt. `I decline to ovarify, the wofem declard, on the basis of my Fifth Afemdfemt rights'."
A large number of The Words We Use are words that most people never or hardly ever use. Many of them, though genuine, appear at first glance like the bogus concoctions that the late Patrick Campbell used to stammer, so teasingly in the television programme "Call My Bluff": Dingley-ooosh, Stugue, Ladoose, Scopse, Amplush, Grush, Smurdikcld, Smoorich, Giglet, Smit, Brawse, Fortnail, Latchikoes, Dailigone, Twangman, Mockt, Segosha, Skoolyuncs, Omlish, Fridgies, Slammicks . . .
Perhaps you know these and others like them. If not, you can count on O Muirithe to elucidate all of them with charm. And there is no point in making fun of the whole science of etymology, because the author does so himself, citing a quatrain of Cowper's:
"Philologists who chase/A panting syllable through time and space/Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark/To Gaul, to Greece and into Noah's Ark."