Loquacious: "The Magic of Names" and "Gorgeous"

Loquacious:  full of excessive talk : wordy (www.m-w.com)

Loquacious is a "wordy" series that revels in language. Read more essays in the series here.

This installment of "Loquacious" is a double delight, which is appropriate, since the following essays were written by the delightful Helen Agarwal of Dixon Hill. I met Helen at Squam Art Workshops a few years ago, and I've enjoyed the way we've kept in touch in a sort of dipping-in-and-out, swooping-by sort of way. I swing by to see what she's up to, and she does the same with me. (All of this swooping has been virtual, sadly, because Helen lives in England and I'm here on the other side of the pond.) A connection to place, a sense of beauty, and a love of words suffuse Helen's work with light. I recently wrote a guest post for the "Changing Places" series on her blog, and I'm delighted to return the favor by hosting her here in The Word Cellar with two essays about some wonderful wordy things. Why two? Because sometimes you just can't stop yourself at one when there's so much loveliness and power to explore with language. I'm happy to bring both of them to you.

Gorgeous

By Helen Agarwal

Gorgeous. It's always been gorgeous. Since the very beginning. Since gorgeous first entered my consciousness.

Gorgeous sounds….well, gorgeous. Full and ripe. A word to gorge on. A moreish, succulent, soft yet satiating sound. I have to pout my lips to say it. Which makes me feel pretty damn gorgeous.

Gorgeous is a word to linger on. That first syllable. Teasing. Tantalising. It can be drawn out forever. Emphasised. Leaned into so easily.

The second syllable. It's coquettish. Sinuous in a neat kind of way. Most of all, it's juicy. Gor–geous. Gorge juice. And maybe that's the nub of it.

Favourite word? Gorgeous.

Favourite food? Fruit.

Always, always, always. No consideration, no decision. No questioning my taste buds or bothering my brain cells. Fruit and gorgeous are part of my genetic make-up. They're who I am. Slice me in two and the rings inside would be fruity and gorgeous and fruity and gorgeous and fruity and gorgeous like pineapple rings right back to the moment of conception.

But this is hindsight, this deconstruction of the word. A little erudite, a touch poetic. Until my rambling thoughts wandered down this page, none of this had ever occurred to me. Far from being brazen, gorgeous has always seemed an innocent word to me. Seductive but wholesome. The connotations, after all, are naturally good. Gorgeous is only ever attached to delightful things. Or to rich and resplendent things. Nothing horrible is ever gorgeous.

There's another association. More particular. The dreamt-up hero of my childhood fantasies called me Gorgeous. Not a compliment, you understand, but his fond name for me. Instead of Love or Honey or Pet Lamb (that's another story). To him, I was Gorgeous. And it's stuck. These days, I'm even Gorgeous to myself. As in, "Come on, Gorgeous, you can do it!" when I really don't think I can and I need to cajole and wheedle and urge every last scared or reluctant ring of my being to do the necessary thing.

When it comes down to it, gorgeous is a word I don't need to unpack. For me, it's an evident truth. Of all the scrumptious words in the world (and there are many), gorgeous is simply the most gorgeous.

* * *

The Magic of Names

By Helen Agarwal

If words are powerful, then names have superpowers. They're the magicians of the word world and they make magicians of us, too....rolling off our tongues and dancing through our minds as spells to conjure with.

Our names are generally the first things given us on arrival in this world. Heck, half the time we've been given them before we ever get here. We construct elaborate ceremonies around the giving of those names; and they turn into containers for all we do and become for the rest of our lives. Hurl a name into the ether and it carries with it a mass of associations. Invoke a name and you can inspire an army, terrify a populace, calm a crowd, reassure a baby.

It's not just our own names that endlessly fascinate us. We have a compulsion to name everything around us. A scientist discovers a star, he names it. A child is given a doll, she names it. When you think about it, perhaps the only thing, other than existence itself, that everything in the universe – animate and inanimate – has in common is that, sooner or later, it all winds up with a name.

When I was small, names were my playthings. I wove stories around them, played games with them, compiled long lists of boys' and girls' names in an old blue notebook. Every so often, I'd pore over the lists and choose the names of my future children. The number of my proposed offspring always correlated directly with the number of names I couldn't bear to live without.

I was eighteen when I discovered the power of my own name. With several years of depression behind me, as well as the usual teenage inadequacy, I rolled up to my first day of university and stood in front of the notice boards in the English department. Scanning the lists of seminar groups, my own name leapt out at me. And the shock was physical. I'd felt like a shadow for so long, barely visible even to myself. Yet someone behind one of the doors in that corridor had acknowledged my existence; had accorded an entire place on this course to me. Suddenly my name gave me substance that was tangible and real. A lifeline back into the world.

Years later, names rescued me again. Living far from home, lonely and homesick, I found a small botanical garden close by. I'm big on nature and dappled sunshine, but those weren't the things that drew me there, week after week. It was the labels attached to the plants. And, oh, the names! Wandering the wooded paths, I kept company with the Green Dragon and the Trout Lily, the Sensitive Fern and the Fringe Tree, with Jack-In-The-Pulpit and Rose Vervain, with the Swamp Milkweed and the Small Yellow Lady's Slipper. I "collected" the magical words in the back of another notebook and fantasised about the character of each fairy tale plant around me. The garden became a living storybook. Enchanted.

These days, it's the Pennine hills I roam. No plant labels here. Instead, I send names spinning from the wand of my imagination and create my own reality from the moors about me, giving name to favourite features, telling them they count. And so I walk along The Mossy Path; I visit The Pool of Reflection; I pass The Spindly Tree. Weaving a personal landscape from the physical one around me. Still conjuring a world from words. A world from names.

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Helen Agarwal lives in a gorgeous house in a gorgeous place in the Pennine hills of northern England – where the names of Cathy and Heathcliff echo round the moors. She writes about her life (gorgeous and otherwise) at Dixon Hill and posts what she hopes are gorgeous photos of her magical world on Instagram. Her e-course, Falling Into Place, is a gorgeous exploration of place and self and the power of names. Helen tries very hard not to overuse the word gorgeous.