Definitely Dahlesque

Tuesday was the 100^th 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.