How can we encourage young people to spend more time enjoying and exploring language? We know only too well that employers are looking for young graduates who, as well as demonstrating those key attributes of leadership, teamwork, organisation, problem solving and the ability to work under pressure, are literate and articulate. We also know, only too well, that many employers are increasingly frustrated, as they encounter young people with fabulous grades but who struggle to communicate effectively, to appreciate the nuances and complexity of language, to write with flair and class or speak with force and conviction.

(Photo taken by Saul, Year 8)

Rigid adherence to that popular fallacy that only high grades in STEM subjects will bring success does our children a great disservice. As Sigmund Freud observed, ‘Words have a magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.’ They have not lost their value – if anything, the gulf between those who can wield the sword of language and the rest is growing.

This week was World Book Day. It was rather subdued this year, but a book that has enlivened breakfasts in the Lock household this year is Word Perfect, by Susie Dent. Ms Dent, a languages graduate of both Oxford and Princeton, has worked in Dictionary Corner on Countdown since 1992. Word Perfect takes a different word every day and explores its etymology, its history and its multiple meanings. From ‘crambazzled’ (appropriately on 1 January), or ‘pandiculate’ (which will be all too familiar), to the origins of ‘stealing someone’s thunder’ or giving someone ‘short shrift’, this is a treasure trove of delights, as well as a reminder of the deep linguistic richness that exists but is so infrequently used.

(Photo taken by Rayaan, Year 10)

We have, in recent weeks, ‘smudged’ our way through the dark ‘dysania’ of January and the ‘feefles’ of February, which always puts me in mind of Don Pedro’s wonderful line in Much Ado About Nothing:

‘Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?’

(Photo taken by Abbas, Year 13)

But brighter and lighter days lie ahead and so the word that grabbed me this week was ‘apricity’ (aka the warmth of the sun on a chilly day), from the Latin ‘apricari’ (to bask in the sun). This wonderfully evocative word has slipped almost entirely from use, yet after our ‘hibernacle’ of artificial light, it is exactly the medicine we need. According to Dent, Florence Nightingale observed that her patients who faced the windows made better recoveries; as is well known, sunlight strengthens our immune systems and increases our serotonin levels; and one Norwegian town has erected a contraption of rotating mirrors to reflect sunlight into the town square every day to prevent ‘skammdegisthunglyndi’, or ‘the heavy mood of the short days’.

Brilliant.

 

Mr Gus Lock
Headmaster