Pleasure

The word ‘pleasure’ is imbued with a sense of guilt, or intrinsic naughtiness; hence the term ‘guilty pleasure’. Of course, if we are of a severely religious bent, all pleasures are guilty. But for the unwashed masses, there remains a dark underworld of illicit indulgences.

Commonly cited examples are television programmes such as Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. The low-grade (or lack of) intellectual stimulus is somehow viewed as injecting a necessary sense of guilt into the watching process.

The bigger brother of this snobbish approach is the world of film. The Oscars have a long history of marginalising comedy films, seemingly on the basis that because they don’t delve deep into the condition of mankind, they are somehow not worthy of an award.

Indeed, in the awards’ 77 year history, just 11 comedies have won Best Picture. Many of these 11 are not balls-out comedies: the most recent incumbent is American Beauty, an exploration of the human condition that happens to be very amusing.

This is a case of the powers-that-be not judging a piece of art within its own aims, and heaving the shackle of intellectual depth over its shoulders instead. Comedy films, however great and however innately genius, remain the film industry’s guilty pleasure.

posted by Epaminondas

Army

What makes an army fight? National pride is a good reason to go out and kill people; countless millions of troops have proudly fought and died for their countries (or for their countries’ incumbent politicians).

Religion always used to be a great excuse for war-mongering – Cromwell’s Irish-bashing New Model Army slaughtered thousands in the name of their God, and did so very efficiently – and in the more recent past deities have become the fashionable reason for invading/terrorising/slaughtering infidels.

But will armies fight for love?

The Sacred Band of ancient Thebes certainly did. One of civilisation’s first ‘elite special forces’, the army consisted of 75 pairs of gay lovers. The theory was that because their fellow soldier was also a lover, they would all fight that little bit harder.

We must remember this was a time (about 400BC) when homosexuality did not possess camp connotations; rather it had the more manly associations of symposia (raucous drinking parties) and spitting into empty wine bowls.

So did it work? Well… yes. In their inaugural scrap at the curiously named Tegyra, they defeated a Spartan skirmish force three times their size. Just a few years later, they played a decisive role in thrashing the same (highly rated) opponents in a much larger battle on the plains of Leuctra.

All good things must end, though, and they met their grisly demise fighting the long-speared forces of the Macedonian king, Phillip. Legend has it they went down fighting to the last man.

posted by Epaminondas

Unpopularity

Sports pundits think Lewis Hamilton has a problem. Despite his talent and the glory that accompanies it he will never be popular – a bit like the maths whizz at school: good grades and few friends.

Poor Hamilton is a boring man from a boring sport. What he does for a living won’t win people over – there are even legions of sports fans who don’t enjoy Formula 1 – but he hasn’t got the charisma to win friends with his personality either.

Hamilton’s problem (not that he would call it that) is not one that rugby players are likely to encounter. It doesn’t matter how boring you are at home; if your job is to run headlong into other people and dig your studs into unfortunate opponents caught on the wrong side of the ruck, you’re an interesting character. The same is true of the most uncharismatic boxers.

But witness also the most popular characters from other ‘dull’ sports. Snooker’s mercurial master, Ronnie O’Sullivan, is the foul-mouthed son of a convicted murderer (while similar to Hamilton, the dull and hugely unpopular Peter Ebdon lives in tax exile abroad). And cricket’s Freddie Flintoff doesn’t just play ‘boring’ Test cricket in the most rambunctious fashion, he drink-drives pedalos in his spare time.

Hamilton offers no such incongruity between his sport and his style. Just as Formula 1 seems one-dimensional to the uninitiated, Lewis Hamilton’s demeanour appears equally flat.

But Hamilton’s strange unpopularity doesn’t just stem from his uninteresting personality of course. Choosing to live far away from the country he races for doesn’t help matters. But more outrageous than that, Hamilton has used his ice-cool level-headedness to achieve that thing so hated by British sports fans: success.

posted by Diamond Supercool

Aardvark

A word that demonstrates the power of the dictionary. Would many people know about aardvarks were it not for their fabled position at the front of the dictionary? When cognitively browsing a dictionary for the first time, most children will, after looking up the usual obscenities, have a peek at the first word in the language. And after various acronyms (Alcoholics Anonymous, Automobile Association, Anti-Aircraft) and the most boring word in the dictionary (‘a’), they get to this strange creature.

And it is a strange creature. Roaming Africa by night, aardvarks survive almost solely on termites, by sucking the blighters up through a long, unsightly, trunk-esque snout. Effectively a cordless hoover with a heart.

Rather uniquely, the word ‘aardvark’ is almost as strange as the termite-tyrant itself. The two a’s at the start of the word seem to resemble the creature’s snout, while the second syllable somehow sounds like an unkind imitation of the first.

And Aardvarks are not alone; there are many words that niftily reflect meanings with looks. ‘Parallel’ makes its point by providing three linear l’s. The ‘z’ in ‘Zoom’ is not the ‘z’ of cartoon snoring; more a sharp bolt of linguistic lightning. And the fully accented ‘mêlée’ has all the cuts and bruises that such an encounter might provide.

There doesn’t seem to be a word that does for looks what onomatopoeia does for sounds, but aardvark is a great example of it, whatever it is.

posted by Tintin’s Younger Brother

Mare

A beautifully appropriate abbreviation for ‘nightmare situation’ when one considers the noun's more traditional meanings. A mare is, of course, a female horse – a creature renowned for its bad temper and unappealing visage.

Thus it was the word people used to describe Henry VII’s fourth wife: Anne of Cleves – ‘the Flanders Mare.’ Anne was in fact so ugly that the moment horny Henry clapped eyes on her he declared bluntly, “I like her not”. Anne’s ugliness didn’t actually stop Henry marrying her, but it did stop him loving her and the marriage was swiftly annulled.

Jolly King Henry had a mare in more ways than one. His new missus was ugly as sin (a real mare) and thus the love affair was an unmitigated nightmare (a real mare). To inadvertently use the word for a female horse, with all her unattractive characteristics, when describing a nightmare situation full of similar disadvantages is four-letter poetry.

posted by Diamond Supercool