MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON IN every age and every clime writers have grumbled about the small vocabulary of their native language and have denounced the patrii sermons egestas. In English, reputed a rich language, the epithets of praise are meagre and colourless, whereas those expressing disapproval are varied, incisive and rich. When we desire to voice our admiration for some book or picture, we find that such words as " good," " admirable " or " excellent " have been, so thumbed in the market-place that they have lost their image and superscrip- tion; they have become as flat and featureless as a Victorian penny. If, on the other hand, we wish to deride or denigrate the works of others, we can find all manner of epithets, clustering like bright Murano beads in our work-basket. It may be perhaps for this reason that young reviewers are tempted to abuse rather than to praise the books before them, since it is far easier to write a " brilliant " article dis- closing the ineptitudes of older authors thad to sparkle in praise. Often have I tried to supplement my vocabulary-by inventing words, such as " couth," or " doriphore," or " hypoulic," feeling that it is the duty as well as the pastime of a professional writer to make two words bloom where only one bloomed before. These laudable endeavours do not meet with the approval of my friends; they expose me to the charge of being obscure, precious, or even affected: As I am told that it is pretentious to play games with the English language, I try to keep Lc) the primer more or less.
* * * * Consider, for instance, how meagre is the vocabulary available to us when we wish to talk about the eccentricities of our family or friends. We use the' one word " mad " quite carelessly and without discrimination, since there are so few precise words to describe the several gradations of lunacy afflicting our relations and our. intimates. Doctors assure us that there is in fact a whole range of epithets and definitions, accurately depicting the special categories of such imbeciles. We could, if we wished and knew how, speak of " manic-depressive insanity," of " schizophrenia," of " paranoia," of " senile dementia," of " dementia praecox," of " toxic insanity," or of " general paralysis of the insane." We could, if we so desired, speak ' of " amaurotic family idiocy," of " cretinism," of " mongolism" or even of " sensory deprivation." But these are hard words to use when dis- cussing people of whom one is sincerely fond, and so in our penury we fall back upon that small and rather mean word " mad." I am, I trust, fully alive to my own incapacities and defects, but I do resent it when they are attributed to dementia senilis. I am aware that I am totally unable to recognise ,any acquaintances when I meet them in the street, but this misfortune is not due to any mental decay, since I was equally incompetent in such matters at the age of twenty- two. It arises from astigmatism so acute that it renders all human faces and figures no more than blurred polygons. Call it " amaurotic " if you like, but please do not talk about senile decay, or general paralysis, or use that cross little word " mad."
* * * * None of my family or friends are (I am glad to say) com- pletely normal. Some of them, when walking in Regent Street, believe that the pavement will suddenly open before them and cast their bodies into a wholly undesired basement. Others imagine that, as they hurry along, they will be en- countered by a glazier carrying a large sheet of plate grass, destined to slit their faces from *brow to chin. Many of them suppose that if I take a convenient aeroplane to Karachi I shall be exposed to certain death. A few of them cherish the illusion that if they do not step on the Cracks of the side-walk they will be faced with some intricate disaster. Many have the habit (as 'I have myself) of placing their forefingers upon some special spot when visiting a place familiar to them over years: thus when I go to the House _ of Commons I prefer to place my finger affectionately upon the shoe of a gentleman who figures on one of its abomin- able murals; similarly I have the habit of stroking the dot of the i in a notice that figures in the ante-room of my club. These may be minor fixations and aberrations; the matter becomes more serious when people are unaware that these hallucinations and obsessions destroy the interest of their personality. What, for instance, are we to do with men or women who remain silent at meals, or with those who become garrulous on the subject of experiences that have in fact never occurred ? For, the latter category of lunatics the French use the term " mythomanes" and I suppose that the English equivalent of " mythomaniac " is legitimate. They will tell one fascinating stories about what happened to them last Tuesday; one will listen entranced and then suddenly one will recall that they are mythornaniacs by _nature, that the thing never happened, and that therefore what they are recounting is dull, dull, dull. Are we to describe such people as " a little mad " ? Surely we need a more subtle vocabulary to designate their evasions of reality. But the words in English do not exist.
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The Romans, so far as I know, possessed only two words ' to define mental deficiency, namely insanus, indicating the amiable type, and furiosus, indicating the less amiable type. The Greeks had a very valuable word, often applicable to my family and friends, namely phrenoblaptes, suggesting " moonstruck " or " deranged." The French have a charm- ing little expression, "etre maboul." I find this term valuable when I desire to indicate the maboulism of those to whom I am too devoted to describe them as a little mad. .The Dutch, being a highly practical race, not much given to phrenology, use short sharp words, such as "gek," or "dol," or " verzot." The only people that I know of who have created for them- selves a varied vocabulary to designate the gradations of dementia are the Germans. Being both neurotic and precise, they have provided a tidy little packet of words with which to analyse their friends. They have " verrackt," -" toll," "rasend," " wild," " geistesgestort," and " wiitend." But they also have the really valuable differentiation between " wahn- sinnig" and "irrsinnig." The latter term corresponds fairly closely to our own expression " wrong-headed," such as we use, when we wish to be kind, about eminent clerics who believe that their political opinions are of depth and im- portance. But ." wahnsinnig is a word I miss in my own language. What a lovely word is that word " wahn," as in " irrwahn," representing illusions that arise, not from malice or frustration, but when one really believes in fairies or Dr. Goebbels and yearns for the impossible and undefin, able to occur ! I also envy the Germans for their expres- sion " Wutanfall," indicating a sudden blind, apoplectic, insane bursf`of rage, such as assails me when a woman in front of me at the ticket-window fumbles for her horrid little purse.
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After all, we have teutonic blond in our veins, we are by nature most eccentric, and we get just as impatient as the rest. Why, therefore, do we not have a wider and more definite scheme of epithets to designate what toda3, we describe as " a little mad " ? Surely a nation that has produced Shakespeare, Blake and the Dean of Canterbury ought to possess the imagination and fantasy to create a whole spec- trum of adjectives, ranging from white to red ? Would some active doriphore suggest to me a good English equivalent for that useful and attractive word " Wahn " ? I much dis- like, when I am feeling wahnsinnig, or even suffering from " irrwahn," to be told that I am a little mad. I am in fact a sane person, subject to the most delicious aberrations.
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