Back to School, Via University

                   BACK TO SCHOOL, VIA UNIVERSITY

“Inothewayurthinkin”, said Adrian

The words seemed slurred into each other. His wife looked at him. There was worry and concern on her face but skilfully woven in with less dramatic emotions. He was older than her; of course he was, since he had been her don at Oxford. It was the special subject she had to do as part of her modern history course that had really brought them together. The choices ranged far and wide and many, including the one she had opted for, were only modern in the sense of their continuing relevance which flowed from the broadness of the subject matter. Broadness spiced with telling detail and apercu. That’s what she had loved.

Some of the articles on the reading list had been written by him. Wonderful exultant pieces tracing the entry of language into the historical firmament. She remembered The Ablaut and the Augment, his stunning analysis of Panini, as well as his description of Seville, his favourite place in Europe, in The City Which Traded Language for Silver. Now that he was growing old the mind was still fertile but better at marshalling minutiae rather than developing large-scale themes.

When he had retired from his Oxford tenure- retired not pushed out she always told herself- she had encouraged him to give rather different presentations, to the school attended by their children. Tonight he was to preside over a question and answer session on language in all its manifold manifestations. Which was just the sort of alliterative phrase that now appealed to him. She had asked a question before they set out and he had given his answer above. In retrospect she felt secure. Secure for him. The old mischief and humour were still there even if sometimes he forgot names of people and of places.

And now they were in the hall full of their children’s friends, boys and girls from 11 to 18. He had handed out a resume of what he would talk about, what they would discuss. But she knew he would range far. The English teacher, a good friend and acting as the MC for the evening, was on his feet.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, take your seats on the magic carpet. Take off is imminent”.

“Language” was Adrian’s first word. It was his second and third and several others after that. He pronounced it with two syllables; he pronounced it with three. He pronounced it in English and French and Spanish. He rolled his tongue around his lips, to demonstrate its anatomical roots and connections.

Language was what mattered to Adrian. The novels he worshipped were the rich descendants of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. “Desert Island Discs is right,” he said with only partly mock dramatics. “Read Moby Dick at least once in your life”.

Plot and character were secondary consideration. Ideas and fancies wrapped in language or vice versa were what mattered. Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees was worth ten stolid Victorian novels. He knew that rang a bell with the pupils. It had always reminded him of the end-of-term game they had played in PT lessons when he was at school and the boys (only boys then) had to clamber and swing from wooden horse to beam and all around the gym without ever touching the floor. Indeed he had persuaded the current gym master to incorporate it into his PE lessons (or whatever the present name for it was- memory failing on that one).

He knew the pupils would get restless with too much talk of literature so next there was a diversion to something more material. Until the advent of Edison and HMV and the like language had come down to us through writing he said. The stuff, or material he slowly intoned, a word only twice as long as its syllables (things can make people laugh just by the way they are said) the stuff used was manifold or manyfold as the Japanese would prove with their origami. Very nice with noodles.

His wife was laughing now. Laughing with relief. He might not remember the name of that boring Exchequer woman who had deprived him of his winter fuel payment but my, could he play around and make little jokes out of nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Now he was talking about papyrus and palm leaves, vellum and parchment. Parchment from goats gave its name to Pergamon, birthplace of the great physician Galen (Adrian’s father was a pharmacist). And in turn he recounted how Pergamon gave its name to the Pergamon Press and the bookshop on the Plain off Magdalen Bridge and the empire of Robert Maxwell. Adrian was off on his verbal travels, to High Holborn in London when Maxwell ran the Mirror and passers-by were treated to or drenched by a golden waterfall of urine from the great man standing at a high window. The pupils giggled.

He was on to paper, a latecomer to the West. It arrived by accident after the Arabs captured Chinese artisans at the Battle of Talas deep in Asia. The first paper factory, paper made from rags of linen and hemp, outside of China was established in Samarkand.

And suddenly Adrian switched.

“What have oo, uff, off, oh and ow got in common?”

Nobody ventured an answer.

“OUGH” he said spelling out the letters. Through, rough, cough, though, bough  Confusing eh. Be grateful you grew up speaking English and didn’t have to learn it. I presume. Hands up anybody who didn’t grow up speaking English”.

A Chinese boy raised his hand.

“Very well done. You are a clever young man.”

“Abstemious and facetious” he said, again changing the subject. And after a slight pause “are the only words in the English language that not only contain all the vowels but also in alphabetical order”

“Cleave”

He paused.

“Cleave and cleave. To pull together and to tear apart. The same word meaning diametrically opposite things. Language eh.”

A girl had her hand up. Adrian nodded in her direction.

“Anne of Cleves was one of Henry VIII’s wives. They were pulled together and then torn apart.”

Adrian smile was broader than it had been all evening.

“That’s good. I like that. Well done.”

He looked around the hall.

“Any more questions or comments.”

Nobody else put their hands up. The English master joined Adrian on the stage.

“Adrian thank you for a wonderful evening. Both educational and entertaining. A round of applause for Adrian”

He certainly got that.

“Now”, said the Master, “Adrian is quite frank that at his advanced age” Adrian gave a mock wince and further bent a body that was already somewhat bent. “he cannot always remember names. With an important exception. He never forgets the names of important racehorses.”

Adrian’s knowledge of the Turf was legendary.

“Now, Adrian, who won this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup?”

Adrian replied immediately.

“Inothewayurthinkin”