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Saturday 17 May 2008

Mind Your Language

Dot Wordsworth fights back

The events of 1 May seem a long time ago, and so does their sequel, a so-called fightback by the Labour party. A press briefing last Sunday declared in a fine froth of mixed metaphors: ‘Gordon Brown will seek to kick-start Labour’s fightback today after its mauling at the polls.’

Fightback is a handy word for politicians because it suggests more than it says. It bears an ambiguous meaning, either ‘retaliation’ (which would sound too spiteful for a party done down by the electorate) or ‘recovery’ (which is the end hoped for, but certainly not guaranteed).

The word has been around for the past 50 years or so, and is still considered colloquial in register. So, I suppose, is break-back, a term from tennis, perhaps specifying a break of service by an opponent, or merely a fight-back from a losing position. In cricket break-back refers to something the ball does, but this is of no use as a metaphor in daily life.

More familiar today is Brokeback Mountain, the haunt of those tiresome cowboys. Just as break-back was formerly in use to mean ‘back-breaking’, so broke-back meant ‘broken-backed’ or, more frequently ‘hunchbacked’ or ‘humpbacked’. The Oxford English Dictionary, preserving grammatical decorum, does not have an entry for brokeback; yet the first example cited under its entry for broken-backed is actually brokeback: ‘Broke-bak scherreue euel mot thou the!’

On first sight I wasn’t sure quite what that meant. It comes from The Tale of Gamelyn, a narrative poem from Chaucer’s time. I have not read it and I have no intention of doing so. But there is a sheriff in it, and that is what the word scherreue means. The confusing word the at the end of the quotation is not the definite article or indeed the pronoun thee, but a verb thee, meaning ‘thrive’. It was often used in imprecations. As for the verb mot, it is the same as our verb must, indeed it was its past tense. This auxiliary verb has been playing musical chairs over the centuries, and in the sentence quoted it means ‘may’, not ‘must’.

That’s enough about this one sentence. Anyone interested can find the text of Gamelyn in a book or on the internet and sit down with the big OED and look up each word. It is perhaps surprising that English has become unrecognisable in 600 years. No wonder we get annoyed by changes from the language we spoke in youth.

Dot Wordsworth

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