Words, Words, Words

And what splendid words they are! 

I love, love, love Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks. It has so much to recommend it, if you like language and nature and interesting stories about interesting people doing interesting, rather academic things, well told. Because I like all these things, it was a joy all the way through.

If not, well . . . You may not enjoy reading a list of words and definitions, all themed around a particular natural feature (Peat, Turf and Earth, say, or Bays, Channels and Inlets, or Dusk, Dawn, Night and Light).

You may not enjoy these word lists being interspersed with a variety of essays about eccentric people, literary works that influenced the author, or the use and sometimes invention of language by children.

You might feel that the author's indulgence of his personal passion for collecting uncommon and/or vanishing words is a slim hook to hang a book on.

But goodness, you'd be missing out on the result of a labor of love. It's a huge task, when you think about it, and Macfarlane has. In fact, he acknowledges that his word-gathering will never be completed, not as long an words continue to be invented to describe precisely certain natural phenomena. My edition has a separate chapter of what Macfarlane calls "gift words," which were sent to him after the book was first published: people were inspired to send him words they had heard or invented, to add to his collection. How charming!  

Meanwhile, I found myself marking pages with sticky tabs because there were words I wanted to go back to and learn, adding them to my vocabulary. Words having to do with water were especially attractive, because there are so many varieties of good weather and good water for kayaking and I'd love to be able to describe them precisely. Macfarlane's sources lean heavily on the United Kingdom, but that's no reason not to adopt a useful word that says exactly what needs saying. 

Ultimately, it's that very precision that I like best about this book. In the same way that one person will see a group of trees and another will see an oak hammock, having the language to describe exactly what you're seeing is a pleasure. Knowing the names of things and how to describe them, based on careful observation and intimate knowledge of Nature, shows appreciation and respect for the glory around us. And we could all use a little more of that.

Excerpt:

very light rain   rainfall with a precipitation rate of less than 0.25 mm per hour meteorological   

virga   observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates before reaching the ground meteorological    

water-dogs, messengers    small floating clouds separated from larger masses, which signal rain Norfolk, Northamptonshire

watery-headed   anxious about rain Essex

weet   to rain slightly Cheshire

wetchered   wet through after being caught out in the rain Lincolnshire

williwaw   sudden violent squall nautical

Note: This book counts toward the Color Coded Reading Challenge.