Mind your language
I WAS pondering, over a morning cup of coffee, the quirks of history which led the Spastics Society to change its name to 'Scope, for People with Cerebral Palsy' at about the same time that the Sunday Telegraph adopted the name `Scope' for its interesting pages on sci- ence and technology. There must be something about the word scope.
Then I opened a letter nestling among a great heap by my breakfast plate. It was from Mr D. R. Vaudrey from Doynton, Bristol. He was also interested in the recent outbreak of more or less pointless name-changes by organisations of all kinds. Relate was formerly the Marriage Guidance Coun- cil; Char is, I think an acronym for the Campaign for the Homeless and Root- less. Others hint at their purpose, like Mr Peter Tatchell's absurd OutRage! (which, besides having a capital letter in the middle, just like EastEnders, sports a screamer, as the press people call it, at the end); Rampage, on the other hand, campaigns for people in wheelchairs (`ramp' — geddit?); Mind and Sane are rival mental health groups.
One of Mr Vaudrey's favourites is Forward, which he feels combines baf- flement with complete irrelevancy; it used to be Cisco — the Civil Service Catering Organisation. Yes, that is good.
I like Unison, which is a clean-sound- ing, cuddly word for a union which is an amalgamation of trade unions such as Nupe. But it is hardly descriptive of its membership. The old-fashioned unions often have wonderful names, such as the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers, about which we heard so much during the miners' strike, the Card Setting Machine Tenters' Society, the Scottish Wool Shear Workers' Union (member- ship 13), and the Rossendale Union of Boot, Shoe and Slipper Operatives (which has the surprisingly high mem- bership of 1,643).
By the time I had finished daydream- ing, my coffee was cold. But, thank you, Mr Vaudrey.
Dot Wordsworth
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