Fortuitous accidents?

Serendipity.

I like words which have their origins in Literature (with a capital L) like the positive dictionary of neologisms ostensibly ‘invented’ by Shakespeare.

There are, of course, quibbles about Shakespeare’s sole authorship of words which cannot be traced to an earlier attribution, but, what the hell, give the guy his due, to have invented one word is more than most people ever achieve in their lifetimes to be credited with so many is something else! Say only 10% are his actual coinage, still impressive! You can check out the full list at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_invented_by_Shakespeare While Shakespeare has given us some wonderful words like ‘incarnadine.’ This is a word which I am still waiting for to use in conversation: there are disgracefully few opportunities for regicide nowadays in our over regulated society!

He has also given us ‘accommodation’ which is difficult to forgive. The word, I grant you, is a very useful one – and for that Shakespeare should have all credit. But, given that Shakespeare himself spelled his name in a variety of ways, even on the same document, I very much doubt that he was consistent in his orthography.

When I was younger I was very much in the same camp as Owl [WOL] in Winnie the Pooh of whom it was said, “He could spell his own name WOL, and he could spell Tuesday so that you knew it wasn't Wednesday but his spelling goes all to pieces over delicate words like measles and buttered toast.” For me, the idea that one day I would be academic enough to spell ‘cauliflower’ with confidence and without blind terror seemed (like marriage) to be a consummation a few steps beyond possibility. 50% isn’t bad! Words [I just typed ‘words’ as ‘wrods’ but Word just corrected it for me – if only I had had a spelling program built into my young head!] like ‘accommodation’ seemed designed solely to be used against me by the arch villain, the hated nemesis of my early years Fred Schonell.

His Essential Spelling List (now available from Amazon from 15p – puts him in his place) blighted my life. I grew to hate the nondescript colour covered little book which haunted me throughout primary school. It was from that hated book that we were given lists of words to learn. Every Friday a test and a feeling of failure to take into the weekend!

In the last two years of primary school I was taught by an old friend of my father’s, a man I knew as Uncle Eric. Before I entered his class I was given a firm lecture by my parents that under no circumstances whatsoever should I make any reference to my relationship with him. I was to refer to him always as Mr Morgan and he would treat me like any other pupil.

To be fair to me, as a child brought up with two teachers as parents, you get used to parents talking and then suddenly turning on you with the injunction that, “You must not say anything of this to anyone else!” As a child growing up listening to things like this, you spend the whole of your youth wondering just who you could possibly tell who might be even remotely interested in the school ‘gossip’ you have just ignored.

With Mr Morgan, I only once make the mistake of referring about him as Uncle Eric and I was able to pass that off as a joke with my fellow school mates. And, by the way, you would have been hard pressed to see any favouritism in the way that I was treated. In the spelling tests on a Friday I was castigated as roundly as anyone else if my performance did not get up to standard. Indeed on one notorious Friday my performance was so poor that I was slapped around the legs as punishment! It later transpired that the list of words on which we were tested was a different one from the list that we had been given to learn. Such unfairness!

This incident gave rise to the most belligerent apology that I have ever had! It was, obviously, my fault that I didn’t point out to the teacher that the list was different. I probably deserved the smacks for other crimes undiscovered but, in the interests of justice I had a punishment credit to be used to cover further indiscretions. That credit did not last long! It was ‘spent’ within a few days.

I have much to thank Uncle Eric for. The somewhat laissez faire teaching of my first primary school teacher gave me an abiding interest in the fascinating digression and ‘unconsidered trifles’ in the world of knowledge, but it was Uncle Eric who focussed my attention on the basic necessities which got me through the 11+ examination and into the rarefied academic purlieus of The Cardiff High School for Boys on The Newport Road – and the rest, as they say, is history.

I would merely point out that my mother once said of Cardiff High, “That school has taught you nothing but arrogance.”

Trust your mother for the truth!

But back to serendipity. You’d forgotten about that hadn’t you? Words from literature? Like ‘chortle’?

I was wondering if it fitted the world of discovery which came with the Great Sorting of possessions which has been prompted by the immanent dispossession of the house which contains them. Things not only lost but also forgotten leapt back into my world as finger pried deeper and deeper into the morass of wires, trinkets and papers which constitute ‘storage’ for me. Many electronic devices starved for so long of their nourishment have now been reunited with the lifelines and electricity has surged anew through their famished circuits.

Can it be serendipity if you start off wanting to find things to fill a few boxes and be paraded for the vulgar view with an end of monetary gain? Does the intention take away from the basic serendipity?

Such questions exercise me. Especially as I didn’t have a swim this morning.