Some years ago, in the pages of The Grauniad, A S Byatt wrote “most people know [Sir Charles Sherrington’s] description of the waking brain as ‘an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern…’”. Really? Do most people know this? I suppose such hauteur is to be expected from the author who revealed, in an interview, that “my children call me A S Byatt”. (Ever since I read that I have been referring to her as “Mum”.)
This by way of preamble, and a reminder to myself to write, not “most people know” but rather, among the literate, it is reasonably well-known that Horace Walpole coined the word “serendipity”. It was not the only coinage of the inveterate letter-writer, sat at his escritoire in Strawberry Hill with a bucket of ice at his side in which to plunge his gout-ravaged feet. There is another of his words which I think we should do our best to reintroduce to common parlance.
When the future George III was a teenager, his grandfather tried to marry him off to a European princess, much to the dismay of George’s mother. The name of the princess was Sophia Caroline Maria, daughter of the Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Under his mother’s influence, George became fretful and aghast at the proposal. In a letter to Richard Bentley dated 19 October 1755, Horace Walpole wrote “Her ladyship’s eldest boy declares violently against being bewolfenbuttled – a word which I don’t pretend to understand, as it is not in Mr Johnson’s new dictionary”.
To revive the word successfully, we may have to widen the definition of bewolfenbuttlement from “being forced into an aristocratic arranged marriage”. So, next time you are cajoled or pressed unwillingly into doing something you do not wish to do, cry “Lawks-a-mercy, guvnor, save me! I’m being bewolfenbuttled!”
I have every confidence it will catch on.
Not only am I going to use it, but I’m going to precede it with: “Most people know that when the future George III was a teenager, his grandfather tried to marry him off to Sophia Caroline Maria, daughter of the Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, but did you know that in a letter to Richard Bentley, Horace Walpole wrote…”
Only the other day I saw sprayed upon the bus shelter,
”BEWOLFENBUTTLEMENT IS NO DEFENCE!”
Pure Tolkien, Shelob’s favourite profanity, Wasn’t the Duchess of Braunschweig Boris’s great auntie? if not she sounds like she ought to have been.
sounds painful
Righto, but it might mean I’ll have to forgo using ‘barmworzled’ and ‘skuddleflumped’. Good solid Angl-Saxonisms that seem to do the job more satisfactorily than the very Teutonic Bewolfenbuttled.
A commendably patriotic objection, Recusant.
Parallel to the use of the old name for Sri Lanka to create the noun ‘serendipity’, I wonder if the Celts/Angles/Saxons/Piltdown Man coined a word from ‘Britain’ when they had discovered it. Maybe it was ‘Britney’.
As everyone is gasping in anticipation here’s what a proper Wolfenbüttel looks like, at least from the fourth floor bog window of the Volksbank in the Aussichtsplatz, another boring rebuilt Kraut tourist trap.
Looked much better when Onkel Addie and his mates were strutting their stuff.
Intriguing word.. and, relevant or not, I was curious to discover there’s an American hard rock band called Steppenwolf…
Of course, Susan – they were Born to be Wild….