The enchantment of grammar

Every morning my Twitter feed presents me with an often poetic Word of the Day from the author Rob Macfarlane. The featured words often come from nature or landscape, including ones which are now almost lost because they have fallen out of usage, but the tweets also embrace dialects, myth and folklore, and a whole range of languages and sciences. Even when I forget the word - as I so often do - it's a rather lovely part of each day's beginning: I invariably learn something new, especially when the word's etymology resonates with something I've already encountered elsewhere, or allows me to view something familiar through new eyes.

The other week, the chosen word was one I'd known all my life, but its etymology and explanation were truly astounding

Word of the #FolkloreThursday: “glamour” - to enchant or bewitch; a magic spell (Scots). "Glamour" was an early 18C corruption of "grammar" in the sense of (occult) learning, an association which also gives us "grimoire", a spell-book. Grammar can enchant, language spellbind.

And I was reminded of a moment, many years ago, when it dawned on me that words we use to describe intense interest - captivated, enthralled, gripped, seized, riveted - all derive from the idea of being imprisoned or in some way held down, or against one's will. And as I was at the time deeply fascinated, captivated, enthralled by Jesus - drawn and delighting even as I had been wary and seeking loopholes - I could quite understand this derivation. But now I am reminded of something more: the deep-seated, desperate fear of magic spells and witchcraft, and of being inextricably enchanted, spellbound, bewitched, fascinated by them - such that fascination and captivity became one. A fear we no longer experience, thank God, even though fascination can still lead into the daunting depths of a lifelong journey into God...

Grammar can enchant, language spellbind... and words... well, they can be portals into the most surprising and unexpected of journeys, in which something as prosaic as grammar can become glamour, and a gateway to half-forgotten memories and new discoveries.