Tuesday
was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Roald Dahl, a man who used
language to both expose and cushion the darkness of childhood experience. In
books (many of which became films) like Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda,
Fantastic Mr Fox, and James and the Giant Peach, Dahl some
very dark environments where children had to pick their way carefully on the
path to happiness.
I
mean, things always turned out okay. But getting there could be perilous
indeed. The worst kind of bullies and monstrous authoritarians populated his
characters’ world, so they needed all the cleverness and courage he could give
them.
But
Dahl also armed his young protagonists with really great words, and this week
the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added six
of them to their lexicon in his honor. They’re not necessarily words that
originated with him—even “scrumdiddlyumptious” was documented as far back as
1942. But they’re phrases that Dahl put on pretty much every tongue.
Like
“golden ticket”, from Charlie, which
the OED defines as: “Ticket; one that grants the holder a valuable or exclusive
prize, experience, opportunity, etc.” Or “Oompa Loompa,” which has actually
changed its meaning over the years. It originally meant an industrious worker,
but since the 1971 film, it just as often refers to the “Day-Glo effects of
some fake tanning products,” according to the OED.
No
mention of hand size.
I
personally get a kick out of the fact that Dahl was so fearless in painting his
language-scapes, especially since one of his school report cards had this
comment: “I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the
exact opposite of what is intended.”
One
final OED honor to Dahl’s imaginative use of language is the addition of the
word “Dahlesque”, an adjective defined as “resembling or characteristic of the
words of Roald Dahl.”
Absolutely
splendiferous.
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