Godwottery

Recently my mother and I were chatting on the phone and realised that we were both admiring the butterflies on the buddleia bushes in our own gardens. Up to this point it had been a normal conversation, but then she suddenly exclaimed, “A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot.” “God what?” I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “You know,“ she said, “It’s a line from a famous poem.” “Well, I’ve never heard of it,” I replied.

My mother comes from a generation that memorised poetry at school and she trots out seemingly random lines from time to time, but even she had to admit that she had no idea what “God wot” meant. So I looked it up and found that it was the first line of a deeply annoying poem called My Garden, written by the Victorian poet Thomas Edward Brown. I have to admit that I’m not a great poetry lover, so perhaps I’m not the best judge, but critics over the years seem to have agreed with me about this one.

One of the many criticisms of My Garden is that it uses archaic words to make it sound quaint and old-fashioned, and ‘wot’ is one of them. Apparently, it’s an old term meaning ‘know’, which had fallen into disuse long before this poem was written. ‘Lovesome’ is also a pretty tiresome word, in my view. In fact, I think the best thing about this poem is that it led to the creation of the wonderful word ‘godwottery’, which was used to describe an overly decorated and kitsch garden, or an affected and archaic use of language. Sadly, the word ‘godwottery’ has gone the same way as ‘wot’ and ‘lovesome’ and if I tried to use it in casual conversation I’d be as pretentious as Thomas Edward Brown himself.

Now that I’ve prepared you, here’s the poem:

My Garden
A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Fern’d grot –
The veriest school
Of peace; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not –
Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.

I know. I did warn you.

So when can you get away with godwottery in language? If you’re Freddie Mercury, who used the words Scaramouche (a rascal) and Beelzebub (the devil) in Bohemian Rhapsody. If you’re an estate agent, when the word ‘twixt’ can be used to mean not very much. If you’re a Canadian journalist in small-town Ontario who works on the Belleville Intelligencer. If you’re going to an orchard in early January armed with pieces of toast, cider and silly songs, you are allowed to wassail. And if you’re me, you’re allowed to call your husband a slugabed if he’s slow to get up in the morning. Sometimes only archaic language will do the job.