A word about Prince Philip and religion

The recent Sewell report on Race and Ethnic Disparities has been much abused and little read. It is full of interesting suggestions, however. One, emphasising the shared history of modern Britain, is to compile ‘a dictionary or lexicon of well-known British words which are Indian in origin’. Actually, such a work already exists. It is called Hobson-Jobson, ‘a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive’. Edited by Colonel Henry Yule, Royal Engineers, and Dr A.C. Burnell, of the Madras Civil Service, it was completed in 1886. It is a large, fascinating book, half an hour in whose company is never wasted. Well-known words that feature include atoll, avatar and ‘a muck’ (which we nowadays spell ‘amok’, and was not, say the editors, originally Malay); bamboo, bangle and bazaar; caddy, candy and cash; and so on down the alphabet. In some areas, the Indian influence is almost pervasive — e.g. calico, chintz and gingham. I like this entry: ‘Home: In Anglo-Indian and colonial speech this means England.’ The book’s curious title derives thus: ‘Hobson-Jobson: a native festal excitement… an Anglo-Saxon version of the wailings of the Mahommedans as they beat their breasts in the procession of the Moharram — “Ya Hasan! Ya Hosain!”’ A modern version of this masterpiece would be most welcome.

Of all the many articles written about the Duke of Edinburgh, the best was Jeremy Clarke’s Low Life column last week. It praised the manner of Prince Philip’s annual salute when laying the wreath at the Cenotaph. What made it almost spookily brilliant was that Jeremy wrote and published it before the Duke had died. So I feel shy about writing more, but here is a word about Prince Philip and religion. As a boy at Eton from 1969, I was invited to conferences at St George’s House, Windsor.