Susie Dent shares her favourite Christmas words
From “bauble-bearers“ to festive “wambling” our lexicographer has a host of words that capture the spirit of Christmas.
From “bauble-bearers“ to festive “wambling” our lexicographer has a host of words that capture the spirit of Christmas.
As I write, things are feeling a little ferhoodled. My hands, furniture and floor are covered in balled-up sticky tape, and name tags have decided to detach themselves from the presents beneath the tree. All the while, Paul McCartney is telling me not once but 17 times that he is “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime.” Ah, ’tis the season to be jolly.
If you’re wondering about “ferhoodled”, this splendid word from Pennsylvania Dutch means “all mixed up” or “jumbled”, an apt description for some of us as we hurtle towards the big day. As always, when life threatens to overtake, there is great comfort in words. Unlike the guest who cancels at the last minute, they never let us down. And so, in that spirit, I thought I’d share some of my favourite words from the Christmas lexicon.
This is, of course, a particularly sparkly time of year, as we deck the halls and spend ten hours untangling fairy lights. “Tinsel” was originally a name for a cloth, woven with shining metal threads to mimic the appearance of ice.
Eventually, it moved to the glittering decorations that make everything suitably spangly. Rather beautifully, it is a sibling of the word “scintillating”, which originally described something that emits twinkles of light.
Equally pleasing to me is the fact that court jesters in Tudor England were known as “bauble-bearers”, a word that we might usefully repurpose for the uncle who attacks the Christmas sherry with too much enthusiasm. The Scots dictionary will tell us that, in fact, many of us indulge in a festive “bummock”, even if we don’t realise it at the time.
This mischievous word describes the huge amount of booze created for (and consumed at) Christmas. When it comes to the food served alongside the bummock over the course of what were once fondly known as the “daft days”, I recently discovered that one old name for a male turkey was a “bubbly jock”, although the dictionary doesn’t relate if the bird was feeling quite so bubbly in December.
What we do know is that it inspired the spin-off “joblijock”, used both for a cockerel at dawn and a domestic disturbance of any description, from small children bouncing on your bed at 3am on Christmas morning, to the same children demanding entertainment just as you’ve collapsed onto the sofa with a tin of Quality Street.
Being selfless is, of course, a necessity at Christmas, even if some acts of altruism are harder than others. One word that always springs to mind when I offer round the last of the roast potatoes is “accismus”, defined in the dictionary as “the pretended refusal of something one keenly wants”. There should surely be a word for the faux smile you offer when someone claims the last spud and you have to painfully hand it over.
Still, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Should the result of festive excess be what Samuel Johnson liked to call a “wambling” of the intestines (sadly unrelated to Great Uncle Bulgaria), I can at least offer you a word for the furthest notch on your belt that you have to resort to after Christmas dinner simply in order to breathe. Say hello to the “Yule hole”.
For all its smiles, we also know that, for many, Christmas can be more wistful than joyful, when we yearn for things – and people – that are now lost. This emotion was once known as “desiderating”, based on the Latin “sidera”, meaning “stars”. For everyone wishing upon a star this Christmas, may it bring peace aplenty, as well as sparkle. And, of course, as many roasties as your Yule hole can handle.
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