Carol’s Column

When you croodle, you’ve moved beyond cuddling

The power of words never ceases to amaze me and there are so many in such a variety of languages.

Just take a look at the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, thick and heavy enough to flatten the most determined hijacker. It contains more words than anyone could possibly learn in even five lifetimes, and that's just in English.

Words can express things so well. My Stellenbosch grandmother, the belly dancer who went prospecting in Namaqualand at 78, would utter the most descriptive sayings I'd ever heard.

When an acquaintance who was regarded throughout the small town as something of a crook died, my grandmother remarked: "They should plant him like an onion with his head down and his feet above so that when he tries to dig his way out, he goes down deeper."

Her other equally pleasurable saying when she was wishing someone less than well was: "Hmph! Onions should grow from his navel."

Actually she had several favourites such as her description of somebody who was not an intellectual giant: "He has the brains of a bed bug," she'd say.

When, as grandchildren if we were indecisive, she would mutter: "Make up your mind, you can't sit on two chairs with one bottom."

But best of all her sayings, was the one she used when describing the prime minister of the time, whom she loathed. Of HF Verwoerd she'd say disparagingly: "He squirms like a fart in a foggy soup."

It may not have been the most polite of phrases, but we all thought it particularly apt and used it joyously throughout the years to describe various politicians.

Over the years I've been told that my ears which stick out at right angles make me resemble another politician from long ago, Piet Koornhof. Ag, ja, no, well, fine. Unlike Koornhof, while my prominent ears didn't improve my marital opportunities or my breeding capacity, they have enabled me to pick up wonderfully expressive and poetic words.

Take croodle. When I heard it used for the first time I thought it a kind of pasta. It actually means to nestle up to somebody in a cuddle of intent. In other words, cuddling is cuddling, but a croodle is what you do when you're really serious.

Probably most Erics don't know that their name is what the fine or pecuniary compensation was called for the heinous crime of murdering an Irishman. In other words, you killed an Irishman and you had to pay an Eric. That was about 400 years ago.

Since then, Eric has become a most honourable and respected name, especially for Maltese poodles. The Canine Compendium states that Eric, Boris, Omo and Marmaduke are the most popular male names for these ubiquitous dogs.

The problem with using alternative words is that often nobody understands which means you might as well have said nothing. Like the other day when I attended a book launch and imbibed three glasses of red wine. Suddenly the author, who was signing my book, turned into an identical twin and then into quads.

He looked so blank when I remarked that I hadn't known he was one of four, that I immediately realised the wine had gone straight to my eyes.

"So sorry, my current state of pixilation is causing me to become discombobulated," I said.

He looked even blanker so I wobbled away with as much dignity as I could.

"Why didn't you just say you were drunk," said my good friend Betty who calls a spade a spaddle.

"Pixilated combobulation sounds more poetic," I muttered.

Then yesterday morning I opened my car door to discover my car radio had been stolen - for the third time in less than a year. "Oh shit!" I yelled. Sometimes the use of a good basic English word is totally appropriate.

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