THE coining of new words is a relatively simple business: the English language spits out new snippets and combinations all the time, writes Arminta Wallace
But only the most amusing or the most useful - "metrosexual", say, or "pooper-scooper" - ever make it to the linguistic mainstream. Others simply float off into the great Scrabble dictionary in the sky. (Hands up anyone who can prove that "paraskevidekatriaphobia", the word for an irrational fear of Friday the 13th, has tripped off their tongue within the last fortnight. Thought not.)
Despite our linguistic ingenuity, there are still plenty of words which ought to exist, but don't. The English language has, for example, no word for a parent whose child has died. New coinages tend to cluster around technology and pop culture - which makes it even more difficult to kick-start new words in more established areas of human endeavour. Singing teacher Ken Shellard is, nevertheless, determined to spread the word about his new word.
At the age of 70, Shellard has spent more than a quarter-century in his chosen profession. And it has come to his attention, with the force of Pavarotti hitting a high C, that there is currently no English word to describe the singing of words.
"Diction!" you might sing out, confidently, at this point. But you'd be wrong. Diction is, in fact, Shellard's bête noire(another useful phrase we don't have in English, come to think of it). For not only does it not cover the kind of things with which he, as a singing teacher, is concerned, it actually leads people up the wrong creative path altogether. "If I challenge my pupils about their 'diction'," he says, "they start doing speechy things. Whereas I want them to respond with singing things."
Shellard is not trying to get his students to spit out their Ts and roll their Rs with that horrid, phoney crispness which the word "diction" seems to encourage. He wants them to think about, among other things, the shape of vowels, the meaning of words, the musical and poetical application of rhythmic nuance, the face as a visible part of the vocal mechanism, and what he calls "the linguistics of breathing". To expect the word "diction" to describe this extraordinarily complex set of activities as well as the act of ordinary everyday speech is, he says scornfully, as unsatisfactory as it would be if we were to use the word "walk" to describe both walking and running.
"Diction", he declares, doesn't even begin to cover this kind of vocal territory; which is why he has created the word "cantaparolation" instead.
The derivation is straightforward: "canta" plus "parola", from the Latin for "sing" and "word". Shellard sits me on a stool beside the piano in his music room - the former garage of his house in Goatstown, Dublin, crammed with books, CDs and sheet music. Choosing a a song - Moon River- from a pile at his elbow, he gives me a lesson in practical cantaparolation. "The first thing I get my students to do," he says, "is to physically form the opening vowel sound of each musical phrase beforethey begin to sing. Then I ask them to breathe in, keeping that shape. Then, and only then, do I ask them to sing out loud."
The first phrase is easy. Mooooooon. The second consists of the words "wider than a mile". What, Shellard asks, does "wider" begin with? "W," I answer. He shakes his head sadly. "No. Wider begins with 'ooooh'. Oooh-ah- ider. So to sing the word 'wider', you need to make another 'oooh' shape." Similarly, he prompts, the word "you" begins with. . .? " Eeeeeee."
Oh, yes. I'm beginning to get the hang of this. Shellard's approach to the singing of words is to underplay consonants, which he regards as obstructions to clarity - "they need to be intimated, not enunciated" - and allow meaning to emerge through the flow of unimpeded vowels. "It's instinctive for singers to do this," he explains, "but they don't do it consistently. Cantaparolation seeks to clarify what they're doing and make it consistent. It's about tidying consonants into their proper place."
It's also about breathing. People often imagine that, for singers, "breathing" simply means being able to sing a long phrase without gasping or croaking. But this, although a necessary skill, is a rarely-used one. For the most part, effective breathing means breaking the phrase in the most meaningful place, and creating the right emotional effect. "Think of a sigh," Shellard says. "Now think of a child telling you about their visit to the zoo yesterday. The breathing is totally different - in one case it slows down, in the other it speeds up." Breathing, he insists, is not something singers add on to singing. It's part of it. This, too, is something which is outside the realm of "diction" as we usually think of it, yet is central to the concept of cantaparolation.
"Good cantaparolation makes the words sound truthful and real," Shellard insists. "When we shape the word, it makes the emotion associated with that word come alive. It comes from inside." Most of us can effortlessly spot the difference between a genuine smile and a blatantly false one; in singing, he says, the difference between the effect produced by good cantaparolation and the surface crispness of good diction alone is equally obvious.
There it is again. Cantaparolation. I've used it eight times now, and though it doesn't yet trip off the tongue, it feels comfortable - how would it not, with all those beautiful Italianate vowels? - and it makes sense. But getting it into circulation will, even for the tireless Ken Shellard, be a tough proposition.
He has written to the compilers of both the Oxfordand Chambersdictionaries, both of whom replied that he has hit on a discrepancy in the English language and that they'll be very pleased to incorporate his word - once it gets about a bit. So if you're a singer, or know a singer, put the word out. You never know. It might just be your chance to change the course of music history.