If, when we rhyme 'tomb' with 'womb', we conceive that we are making a connection never before thought of, we are innocent indeed; and our innocence will rightly be derided - as a callowness in ourselves which the language that we use, British English, has long ago grown out of. We have shown ourselves to be less grown-up than the language that we attempt to bend to our immature purposes - an attempt that the language itself frustrates by appealing, implicitly and inevitably, to English-language-users more worldly-wise than we are. If this is true (it is a matter seldom canvassed), out of many possibilities that spring to mind two should be noticed: first, we may conceive of a language - as it might be Russian, or even American English - that is less worldly-wise than British English; and secondly we may conceive of, and even think that we register around us, a linguistic community - users of British English - which by wilful or enforced ignorance of past usages may force their experienced language back into inexperience, to a point where rhyming 'tomb' with 'womb' may once again seem to be innocent, a thunderclap of unheralded revelation.

LRB 21 June 1984 | PDF Download