Parallel Universes?

A few days ago whilst completing a crossword I went into anaphylactic shock. Figuratively so. Or - to adopt current usage which employs the word as an intensifier in contempt or ignorance of its traditional meaning - literally. The answer to the clue was the name of a British bird: sis*i* was as far as I could get, the four letters I’d filled in supplied by the answers to other clues. In despair I  showed the puzzle to Pat. ‘Siskin,’ she said, without a moment’s hesitation. Hence the anaphylactic shock. I’d never ever heard or seen the word before. And it wasn’t the name of some exotic species recently discovered in the depths of the Amazon rain forest, but as British as a skinhead throwing a brick through an asian shopkeeper’s window. 

    I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of parallel universes, a common plot device in science fiction. A story I read many decades ago involved a time travelling tourist momentarily stepping off a bridge of twentieth century time into the world as it was several million years ago. When he returns to his own time he finds the US slightly, but balefully, changed. A right-wing extremist has just won the presidency - before the time-traveller left the Democrat candidate was heading for a landslide victory - and the English language has changed in many though subtle ways. When the time-traveller takes off his shoes he finds a butterfly stuck to one of the soles.

   I think I am that time-traveller. It’s not that I’m unaware that language changes as part of the normal course of events, although when I was young I hardly noticed it: ‘wireless’ being replaced by ‘radio’ is an example which springs to mind. And while the almost universal substitution of ‘train station’ for ‘railway station’  irritates me, and even more so when some ignoramus of a scriptwriter has Geraldine McEwan’s Miss Marple employ the term, I know my irritation stems not from a superior moral or intellectual perspective but merely from the horror of change which affects the elderly. No doubt there were old men in the 17th century deploring the vogue for referring to an ewt as a newt, and young people’s habit of using ‘indifferent’ as though it meant ‘uninterested’ rather than ‘impartial’. 

   But ‘siskin’ is different. I’ve been reading for over sixty years - much of it fiction I admit - but also thousands of articles in newspapers and magazines. And never once have I encountered the word. Pat thinks my ignorance of ornithology is the explanation. I don’t agree. I am deplorably ignorant of a huge range of subjects but I’ve seen the words they use. I’ve no idea what a quasar is, but the word forms part of my mental landscape.

   I’m not entirely sure when I stepped on the butterfly. Back in the late seventies or early eighties over a lunchtime pint, a friend, Graham, drew my attention to the word ‘resile’. Neither of us had ever heard it before, but suddenly it was on every politician’s lips. The recent vogue for ‘redact’ and ‘redaction’ is similar, though subtly different. As an English teacher, I was professionally acquainted with the term in relation to editions of books, but I find the expansion of its use utterly confusing.

   So I’m going with the parallel universe explanation. It’s not just No Country for Old Men but no Universe either.