Peter Rhodes on harvests, new words and going mad with boredom
The Daily Telegraph reports: “Farmers have warned that this year could be their worst ever harvest after a summer of drought.” This is one of those stories, like so many others, that would be much more accurate if it began with the word “some.”
Some farmers may be having a bad year but others are not. That is the nature of farming. Only a few weeks ago Farming Today (Radio 4) introduced us to a farmer chortling with delight because he'd got his harvest in so early that he was able to take August as a holiday. Swings, roundabouts and combine harvesters . . .
As words like “chortling” slip out of use, there are always new words being invented. This week the Cambridge Dictionary officially welcomed 6,000 newcomers, some of the words being inspired by social media. Whether they are all entirely new is debatable. Take “delulu,” coined by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and said to mean one who is delusional. Now, put on your most strangulated Australian accent and say “delulu” out loud. Does it not sound much the same as Deolali the old British transit camp in India?
During WW2 soldiers allegedly went mad with boredom in the camp, a condition known as “going Deolali” or “Deolali tap.” If you can't see the similarity between “Deolali” and “delulu,” you're clearly delulu. PS: Deolali was the setting for the old, and now decidedly unwoke, BBC comedy “It Ain't Half Hot, Mum which ran from 1974-81.
The most surprising word not to make it into mainstream dictionaries must surely be the one that sometimes slips into an unguarded conversation when a situation is not quite drastic and not entirely dramatic. Dramastic.
It's just over a year since the British Army lifted its long standing ban on soldiers wearing beards. Since then, how many soldiers have given up shaving? Even after invoking the miracle of AI in the archives, I can't find any official figures but, perusing recent military parades for VE and VJ-Day, I'd say it looks about half. Any one of Queen Victoria's squaddies from the Crimean War would feel instantly at home in these hirsute ranks of warriors. Step forward His Majesty's Facial Fungus Fusiliers.