Lost for words - part two

“Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children.  They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no-one noticed….”

So begins a beautiful book called ‘The Lost Words’, written by Robert MacFarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris.

I treated myself to it, as a lover of language and nature and illustration – a large, heavy hardback, tinted liberally with gold, flooded with watercolour washes on some spreads and unafraid of the boldness of white space on others - a work of art in the truest sense.  Birds and letters of the alphabet flit and fly through its pages as the author casts magic spells to reinvoke the ‘lost words’ of the title.  What lost words are these?  Words like rapscallion and farthingale?  Erm, no - but tell you in a minute. 

Although categorised as a children’s book, it’s far more than that - not a story book but poetic and playful, written to be read aloud - like incantations.  But the story behind the book’s existence is also really worth telling.

Once upon a time (in 2007), the editors of the latest version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary faced a dilemma when they needed to find room for contemporary words like ‘analogue’, ‘broadband’ and ‘celebrity’, meaning that several others previously included would have to go.

I’ve no idea how I'd make decisions about which words to replace, and I realise it’d need a lot of thought, but I’d have difficulty culling any connected to nature, I know that.  The natural world is under threat from so many different corners and yet so vital to our well-being, I feel its vocabulary is at least one thing we can easily protect and ensure it stays alive in the minds of its future inheritors.

Still, unfortunately, several words I was really surprised about lost their place in the new edition.  Nature words, like these ones….

                                    Bluebell

                                                                                                  Magpie

                              Conker

                                                         Kingfisher

                                                                                  Blackberry

                                                  Starling

                                                                      Acorn
                                                                                              Newt

That's just a small example.  Maybe I'm being sentimental and old-fashioned, but I feel quite sad about this - I don't ever want a celebrity to have priority over a conker, in any form.

If you feel the same, at least know we’re not alone - when news of these changes came to light, there was quite an outcry.  (Read more here if you’re interested...)

And what better motivation could there be than that to create a sumptuous tribute to these newly 'lost' words, something thought-provoking and exquisite, both literally and visually, to be lingered over and treasured?  Indeed, the depth of feeling led to a collaboration between this hugely talented author and illustrator, and then to this remarkable book.   Not only that, but a proportion of the profits is also being donated to the Action For Conservation charity.  I guess that must be our happy ending.