Words | Joseph Reaney

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 28TH JANUARY 2010 BY RED C MAGAZINE]

When I was growing up in a quiet little town in the south of England, I was always jealous of people with accents. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, to be able to ask for jellied eels, or a sausage barm, without sounding like a ponce. Wouldn’t it be bloody brilliant if the sound of my voice alone communicated a deep-rooted link to the precise location of my upbringing.

I do, of course, have vocal indicators that identify me as southern English. Many can even place my accent in the south east. But am I from Basildon or from Basingstoke; from Berkshire or from Kent? My part-BBC, part-Estuary English style of speech gives few pointers to a precise location. The fact is, millions of people across a large part of the country speak in much the same boring way as I do. My voice is a poor compass. It’s hardly surprising, then, that I dreamt of having a real accent. Continue reading →

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 18TH NOVEMBER 2009 BY RED C MAGAZINE]

I like words. They happify me. In fact, they make me tripudiate with joy. I’m one of those people who take far more pleasure in hearing about a crepuscular splodge than actually seeing one; and would much rather read about a spelunking scrimshanker than go and cheer him on. I get a kick out of the English language and, at the risk of being philodoxical, I think everybody should. Language may be fundamentally a means of communication, in the way that food is fundamentally a means of nutrition, but both offer pleasure far beyond their function. Words should be savoured like a sumptuous steak.

Of course, when I try to convince my chums about the myriad delights of mellifluous language, they call me a ponce. Well, until a few weeks back. All of a sudden, they’re casually dropping obscure words into every conversation. It’s frippet this and proprioception that. And while I love to think it’s down to my strategic nagging, I’m afraid it isn’t. They still think I’m a ponce. But they’ve become huge fans of this website called Wordle. Continue reading →