G Is For Gorm/less, Gorillas, Genius, and Grue/some.

 There are billions, and perhaps even trillions of combinations we can make out of our 26-letter alphabet. Some, like the words Big Pharma come up with to name their drugs, are unspellable by normal folk. But they all have an "X" in them, and often a "Z" as well. They are the tail-feeders of words. Some, like "rhythm", have no vowels. But then, some entire languages have no, or very few, vowels - yes, Polish, we're looking at you. Welsh is simply an absurdity, although it has given us some handy words. And I'm sure some start with "G".

If a person can be Gormless, then it suggests that there must be a thing called "Gorm". My Chambers dictionary, however, refers me to "gaum", which is a clumsy daub, or clay, used in poor housing in the Iron Age. It can also mean "understanding". 

And this is where, historically, I have not always been the most successful of individuals. I don't think I have ever been entirely Gorm (or Gaum) less. But there has been a spot in my mind or character that hasn't ever really been filled up. I was a Gorm-light area. Sorry. Gorm-Lite. 

When I was a late teenager and I lost my virginity to a woman whom I soon married, I was almost completely gormless. Understanding requires empathy and knowledge, and I was sore lacking in both. I knew nothing of sex, except that it was fun. I know naught about menstruation, hormonal flurries, or money. I knew nothing about insurance, despite having worked as an Insurance Clerk for a year. My girlfriend / wife knew a lot about being a woman, but couldn't tell me, because I was sure that I knew everything. Sigh.

And because understanding money meant understanding numbers, I was stumped. But, of course, I knew everything about nothing, and nothing about everything. As any teenager does.

I don't have a picture of me as a teenagers. This will have to do instead.

My Gorm-Lite condition didn't start filling up up until I had been married to my third wife for a couple of years. I can now claim to be Gorm-Plus, if not even Gormfull. Time will tell.

At least I know how to listen. I have that in common with Mountain Gorillas, the magnificent animals Dian Fossey championed so bravely. Was it Sigourney Weaver who played her in the movie? I heard an interview on the National Programme the other day that reminded us that although (thanks to the brave men and women of the Ugandan Anti-Poaching Patrils) poaching has fallen dramatically, it still occurs. Adult Gorillas, one of our closest evolutionary cousins, being killed for their balls, their hands, and their coats. Check them out on the internet, and give some money - even $5 - to their protectors. The Jungle Elephants are in an even worse dilemma. They're mainly in Kenya, and they are being killed at an appalling rate, despite Kenya's best efforts to date. 

I really can't think of any positive fate for the poachers. Being underground might be approaching acceptability.

Which bring us to Genius. Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas are all genius-level animals. You could add Dolphins and Whales to that list. (Whales. Not Wales or the Welsh, whose language sounds like a very moist cough).

Nothing, of course, is as geniusical as the common or garden Homo Sapiens. 

I'm re-reading Arthur C Clarke's "Odyssey" series: 2001, 2010, 2100, and 3001. There's a man of genius for you. A thinker who thunk thoughts unimaginable for their time, yet taken for granted now. We are yet to see his "Space Elevators".... but they are being seriously discussed and designed. 

But he was not all-seeing. I've just finished 2010: Odyssey Two, which was published in 1982, think. No mention of climate change, cell-phones, or electric cars. The internet is vaguely there, but not as the behemoth it has become.  And the USSR is still a going concern in his 2010. But he would have known about Thatcher , which is why England hardly features in the book. China as a space-faring nation does, though. 

Speaking of Thatcher: I was considering the word "Gruesome" the other evening, and retired to Chambers, my little book of words. Chambers informed me that gruesome (Not as in "I hope you like the lettuce: I gruesome in my vege garden.") means "horrifying, scary, and more than mildly concerning. Something that'll see your blood pressure rise by ten points". 

And Grue? Viscera. Blood n' guts, Offal. So to say "She saw the gruesome  of the pile of intestines, kidneys, liver, and appendices tumbling from his belly-wound" is tautological. We should either leave gruesome out, or leave all the nouns of his belly cavity out. Of the sentence, that is. It wouldn't be gruesome if his intestines, etc., were all in. 

And ending the formal blog with pictures of viscera implanted on our brains seems to me to be an ideal situation. Now, for some quotes from Robert Graves.

ROBERT GRAVES

If I were a girl I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

There's no such thing as good writing. Only good re-writing.

Marriage, like money, is still with us. And, like money, progressively devalued.

Every (English) poet should master the rules of grammar before s/he tries to break them.*

*my brackets. 

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.