FIND BEAUTY IN THE LOST WORDS
THE LOST WORDS
An appalling attack on the English language (and childhood) happened in 2007. Thankfully, The Lost Words, a wonderful new book by Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane, is out to save the day with a beautiful protest.
The “crime” was perpetrated by the Oxford University Press Oxford Junior Dictionary, one of the standard reference works found in primary schools throughout the UK. The dictionary editors began removing words that it determined were no longer being used or read enough by children to merit inclusion. It sounds reasonable, until we learn that the 40 deleted words are those found in nature —words like “acorn,” “bluebell,” “heron,” “newt,” “otter,” “dandelion,” “fern,” willow,” and “kingfisher” -- and we learn that this was done to make room for new words, like “broadband,” “celebrity, and “cut-and-paste.”
To be “fair,” editors didn’t create the conundrum --- Macfarlane laments that children have lost touch with nature in his article in The Guardian. It’s true, children (and adults) have been spending less time outside and less time with books in favor of electronic screens. But the publisher’s solution of eliminating words for nature things compounded the problem. And it caused an outcry.
Artist Morris channeled her outrage and took action -- creative action. She aimed to create a book that could make up for the dictionary’s failings, that would resurrect and glorify the lost words.
She reached out to MacFarlane, an esteemed nature writer, and asked him to collaborate with her on the book. They helped each other to see the world differently. Together, they created a masterpiece.
For each of 20 words that had been deleted from the dictionary, MacFarlane wrote a compelling acrostic poem, which he refers to as a “spell,” and Morris created a beautiful accompanying illustration, both of which served to beckon us back to the natural world.
Published by Hamish Hamilton, the book is larger than most, at 11 x 15 inches, so Morris’s illustrations have room to dazzle. Macfarlane’s “spells,” come with room to imagine and reflect.
“Should green-as-moss be mixed with
blue-of-steel be mixed with gleam-of-gold
you'd still fall short by far of the -
Tar-bright oil-slick sheen and
gloss of starling wing.”
Each “lost” word is rendered in gold leaf and is accompanied by exquisite watercolors depicting the illustrated word by itself as well as within the wider context of its natural environment. Finally, an illustration shows the absence of the word. We feel the sadness in this loss.
Oxford Junior Dictionary saw its last deletion in 2008, but in January, 2015, a group of writers led by Margaret Atwood penned a letter to Oxford University Press urging them to reinstate some of the words that had been removed. The quandary continues.
“The Lost Words” isn’t just a book for children. It is a book for us all. It has motivated a grassroots movement across Britain, Europe, and North America to help restore our connections to nature. A number of schools in the UK, for example, have raised grant money to make sure that every child gets a copy. In fact, “The Lost Words” will likely be one of the first books, since the Oxford Junior Dictionary itself, to end up in every primary school in the UK.
There’s also been intense interest in the book’s relation to the end of life and to older-life communities. A recently launched campaign aims to get the book into every hospice in the UK. It’s already in every care home in Wales. And it is being used by dementia charities, helping patients to reconnect with lost words.
Morris and MacFarlane have recently been commissioned to provide the interior murals and text for three floors of a major new orthopedic hospital in London.
Robert MacFarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the author of a number of bestselling and prize-winning books, including The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Holloway, and Landmarks. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E. M. Forster Award for Literature in 2017. He is a word-collector and mountain-climber.
British artist Jackie Morris began working as an illustrator for magazines including The New Statesman, New Socialist, The Independent, The Guardian, and Radio Times, as well as for organizations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International. She went on to illustrate children’s books.
Read more about Beautiful Books in Wild Wonderful Wales and Beautiful Last Lines.
And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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All illustrations are by Jackie Morris. From the book “The Lost Words,” by Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris. Courtesy of Hamish Hamilton.
