Four Letter Wrdz - An Introduction

 So what is it? Always start with a question to hook them.  

So Four Letters Words (or Wrdz) is a collection of observations, recordings and musings about four letter words. Like the advert about Ronseal wood stain - it does what it says on the tin. That advert shows my age. Cast your mind back to 1994, Was this the time of Changing Rooms and that one about decking over gardens with Alan, the auburn haired lady and the tall man? Dave Shelton and Liz Whinston came up with the line that made Ronseal a brand leader in its niche of the gardening paint department. 

(Source - https://www.creativereview.co.uk/does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin/)

For those I have asked already, you know who you are, is to come up with a four letter word that is pertinent to you and we would discuss it for 20 minutes. It may lead to other four letter words and many shorter or longer words. It is about language and so much more. It is also about remembering. I and my brother got to that age when you say goodbye to your last existing parent. I know a lot of friends who are doing exactly the same thing, well we are of an age. 

I am currently on the train to London Victoria from Eastbourne and there is a wonderful train conductor, Nick is his name, who wishes us all a wonderful train journey. He says that it will be the best journey of our life, he bestows blessings on this our journey to London via Hampden Park, Polegate, Lewes, Wivelsfield (what a great name for a town, although I guess it was a village first). Haywards Heath, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon, Clapham Junction and London Victoria. 

So Wivelsfield is an Anglo Saxon word for the "field of a man called Wifel" or maybe something to do with a weevil. It is also sits on a ridge for a watershed of two rivers, the Adur and the Ouse. Just don't look it up under the Urban Dictionary unless you have a broad imagination. 

So as I thanked Nick for his blessings and greetings to the new customers, we talked briefly about how words make life. So if you utter the singular of words and life, You have two four letter words. Word comes from the Proto-Germanic "wurda" (even as I type it, the Google word checker changes it to word) and it goes back further to Proto-Indo-European word "were" meaning to speak. So does this mean that a werewolf is a speaking wolf. Well, according to John Landis' film "An American Werewolf in London", it doesn't but it may have done back in the days of werewolf legends around the great forests of Europe. 

See what I mean, a singular four letter word can take you on such a journey. I do hope you enjoy the journey.