The Boomtown Rats

What's in a Word?

The Word 2000 took place between 23rd September and 1st October.

The Search for the Nation's favourite Word...

By Phat Traffic Writers

In the beginning was the Word. But which word in particular? ‘God’, perhaps, or ‘Sex’? The question, it seems, has been resolved. For as part of London’s International Literature Festival, Sir Bob Geldof has orchestrated a millennium project to find the nation’s favourite word. And after months of searching, the winner has been announced: ‘Serendipity’.

It is an appropriate victor, for selecting from the 80,000 plus words that compose the English Language, "to create a snapshot of the priorities and values of the nation", has indeed proved a serendipitous task. Running high on the list are ‘Quidditch’, the school game played by Harry Potter; and ‘Bo*%!cks’. The latter, perhaps, is not an unusual choice - given the fact that Sir Bob’s own favourite is the F-word, "because it’s elastic, seductive, persuasive, sexy and flexible."

Expletives pepper the list – ‘Crap’ being a case in point. But if one reads their inclusion as further evidence for a decline in the Queen’s English, are the Irish so different? Nanci Griffith’s favourite word may well be ‘Harmony’, but fellow musician and Irishman, Ken Sweeney, plugs for ‘Gank’. "It says so much," Sweeney offers. "Ruby Wax, Simple Minds, Catcher in the Rye, bands who make a big deal of sweating onstage... all Gank."

The favourite word of Alice Taylor, best selling Irish author, is ‘Simple’ – telling, perhaps, given the penchant for restraint she exercises in her writing. In Ireland however, ‘Simple’ also carries some deliciously subversive connotations, especially when used in reference to those amongst us a few pence short of the pound. Poet Tom Paulin, though somewhat critical of the list’s objective value, makes an Irish connection too. He likes "the old Shakespearean word ‘Cauld’ for ‘Cold’, which is still used in Northern Ireland."

Though our current fixation with lists, as author Don DeLillo has pointed out, may amount to little more than cultural hysteria, the spectrum of words on offer reflects something more. Namely, the individual resonance English has for billions of speakers throughout the world.

Broadcaster Trevor McDonald’s favourite word, for example, is ‘Grace’, because "it embodies everything I think is elegant and fine about life." Barbara Windsor’s is ‘Darling’, "because I can never remember people’s names when I’m introduced to them at big functions." Britney Spears’ is ‘Amazing’, Michael Palin’s ‘Eleemosynary’ (‘related to charity’), and Jeffrey Archer’s ‘Energy’. Patrick Moore chose ‘Satisfactory’, "because it shows things are just as they should be," and Spike Milligan ‘Fish’, "because I’m a vegetarian."

Other words polling strongly include ‘Jesus’, ‘Hope’, and bizarrely, ‘Elephant’. Would an Irish compilation agree? Perhaps not. Shay Brennan, the Republic of Ireland and Manchester United footballer who died earlier this year, illustrated the fact that, though we share a language, the attitude Irish and English folk have to the use of that language differs immensely. At the peak of his career, Brennan appeared on breakfast TV in Britain, and looked on in amusement as Anne Diamond interviewed the morning’s other guest, Julio Inglesias. Suave and handsome, on a number of occasions, Inglesias used the word ‘Manana’.

"What a wonderful word," Diamond crooned. "But what does it mean?" "Manana," Inglesias replied, "means we will do something later, tomorrow or maybe the next day." The presenter turned to Brennan, wondering whether a similar term existed in Ireland. "Ah no," Brennan winked. "We’ve no word in Ireland that would have the same urgency as Manana…"

Incidentally, at the time of writing the Literary Festival’s word of the day is ‘Discombobulate’, meaning ‘to throw somebody into a state of disconcerting confusion’. Which, as someone who works with words for a living, I find communicates my current feelings towards the language to a tee.