Why don’t celebs think before they speak?

Tom HanksFamous people can’t help talking cobblers, can they? In today’s Metro, Tom Hanks is interviewed to publicise his new film Charlie Wilson’s war.

He is asked what it was like working with Julia Roberts and his answer is as follows…

She’s magnificent. She has priorities that go far beyond making movies and yet she knows exactly where she is – in the zeitgeist of the business

OK, let’s look at one part of that quote a little more closely. According to Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts is ‘in the zeitgeist of the business’. Does he even know what zeitgeist means?

This is the first movie that Julia Roberts has made (and I’m not counting voiceovers) since Ocean’s Twelve, which came out in 2004.

Far be it for me to disagree with Tom Hanks, but I thought everyone had to be talking about and what you represent if you are part of the zeitgeist.

And on another point, to be ‘in the zeitgeist’, is, I think, impossible.

Wouldn’t it have been nice, if he’d just said. ‘She’s cool and great to work with’ and be done with it?

How stupid do I feel?

A jelly rollI recently wrote about learning new words and making sure that the usage of words that some people might call esoteric is upheld.

This morning it occurred to me, as I was walking to work, that I didn’t actually know the meaning of a certain word that I had seen written down time and time again.

I was listening to John Martyn’s awesome Solid Air and remembered that one of the tracks was called Jelly Roll blues. I’ve also come across Jelly Roll Morton in my time as well, but until today it had never occurred to me to find out what ‘jelly roll’ in the world of jazz.

You can imagine my surprise and, I suppose, embarrassment when I discovered that it is basically slang for a woman’s vulva and also refers to sex.

I guess that just goes to show you learn something new every day!

From albedo to zugunruhe

There was one of the most enjoyable articles I have read in a long time in yesterday’s Review section of the Guardian.

It was one man’s (James Meek) quest to look up and learn every obscure word that he encountered over the past few years.

Meek mentioned a few words that I have come across myself, such as ‘litotes’ and ‘arête’, which briefly made me feel good, but most of them were as much a mystery to me as they were Meek.

The title of the article includes two that surely show how diverse and bottomless the English language is.

One point that the writer made, and one I wholly concur with, is that these words should not be lost and need to be remembered and used elsewhere.

I’ve long been of the view that we should use ‘different’ words and not the same, short, boring words to describe things. ‘Hirsute’ has long been one of my favourite words and is much more evocative and enjoyable than hairy.

Equally, I think more people should talk about the ‘antebellum’ period of history, rather than pre-war.

It’s not being posh, arrogant or a snob, simply wanting to keep words alive and not let them die out. Long live the English language!