Whimsical

Image by Vilkasss, Pixabay

This month my research for this blog sent me down a whimsical rabbit-hole of verbal delight.

Whimsical comes from whimsy which appeared in the 1650s - characterized by odd fancies or peculiar notions.

In the 1640s, a whim was a play on words, pun. This meaning soon died out, and by 1690, whim meant caprice, fancy, sudden inclination of the mind; perhaps because whim was shortened from whimwham (1520’s) – a fanciful object, trifle, toy.

From the late 1500s onwards, a plethora of words like whimwham emerged. In "Suffolk Words and Phrases" (London, 1823), Edward Moor quotes a list of "conceited rhyming words or reduplications" from the 1768 edition of John Ray's "Collection of English Words Not Generally Used," all said to "signify any confusion or mixture;" higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, hodge-podge, mingle-mangle, arsy-versy, kim-kam, hub-bub, crawly-mauly, and hab-nab. To these Moor adds crincum-crankum, crinkle-crankle, flim-flam, fiddle-faddle, gibble-gabble, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, hiccup-suickup, hocus-pocus, hotch-potch, hugger-mugger, humdrum, hum-strum, hurry-scurry, jibber-jabber, prittle-prattle, shilly-shally, tittle-tattle, and topsy-turvy.

By my reckoning, 15 of these whimsical conceited rhyming words are still in use - how marvellous! We could add jingle-jangle and knick-knack. If you can think of any others, please share in the comments below.

Coming back to whimsy, my mind could not help turning to Dorothy L Sayers’ wonderful amateur sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey. His name conveys the essence of his character – Peter, the rock, in combination with a play on whimsy. I love the radio plays of his adventures, available on BBC Sounds.

I leave you with a beautiful quotation:

‘And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you're a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.’ — Eldridge Cleaver, black American writer and political activist (1935-98).