How curious is the power of words

Regular readers of this blog will know I have a fascination with words, particularly the written word. One of my long-held ambitions has been to write a book; a novel that is. Despite having written, and had published, hundreds of academic papers and two reference books, I know I’m probably still not clever enough to write that novel that is meant to lurk inside us all. These days I content myself by writing these weekly blogs. To date, I have posted 767 weekly blogs, and as each one tends to be around 750 words, I guess I may indeed have written a book!

My fascination with words saw me looking last week for the origin of the phrase ‘to eat humble pie’. All will become clear as to why later. It turned out to be an interesting search that fuelled my curiosity over the meaning of different words. The phrase itself has been in use since the mid 19th century. The word humble, appears to have been derived from the term ‘numbles’ (or sometimes ‘noumbles’, ‘nomgblys’ and ‘noubles’). These were all words used to describe what we now call offal; such things as animal heart, liver, entrails and so on. Over time these words evolved into ‘umbles’ used to describe pies where the filling was made from offal.

Although sounding similar, the word ‘humble’ has a different etymology, and is derived from the Latin for loins. Interestingly loins (girded or not) are described in the Oxford English Dictionary, as the ‘parts of the body that should be covered by clothes’. It is perhaps that the similarity of both words ‘umble’ and ‘humble’ and the fact that umble pies were eaten by poorer folk that lies behind its current idiomatic meaning: that is, to eat humble pie is to admit you were wrong.

Last week I ate a large slice of humble pie. In a recent blog, I mentioned that I was to appear before a national review panel who, I suggested, would be ignorant about mental health services, mental health nursing, and measuring the real impact of our improvement journey on service users and colleagues. How wrong I was.

The panel were informed, were appropriately curious and very supportive. This made our discussion constructive, helpful and a real privilege to be a part of. It also had a very surprising outcome. At the end of the review meeting, I invited the NHS England Board panel members to visit our Trust to see for themselves what we were doing and where we were going. Two of the panel took me up on my invitation last week and came up to Manchester to visit our Trust.

It was wonderful to be able to show them around some of our services, and let them see the improvements we had made to many of our clinical environments. More importantly, it was great to introduce them to colleagues and to let our colleagues relate their own experiences, their journey so far, and the confidence they had in our future. I think that it was far more powerful for my NHS England colleagues to hear the words directly from my colleagues than any report or PowerPoint presentation I might have provided. 

My GMMH colleagues did themselves proud in the telling of their stories and doing so in their own words. We were also able to have conversations with some of the service users we met during the visit. Again, it was a powerful opportunity to learn about the services we provide through service users describing. in their own words, their experiences and hopes for the future. I hope last week’s visit is the first of many, and so yes, I was happy to eat that great big slice of humble pie and admit I was wrong.

On a lighter note, there are some words I would never eat. These are the words to be found running through the great British seaside tradition of a stick of rock. I can’t actually recall eating any rock in my childhood, although I know back then I did have a very sweet tooth. These days less so, and I would never consume such sugar-filled confectionary today. The seaside rock we have today comes from the 19th century ‘fair rock’ which was sold at fairgrounds during a time when sugar was both cheap and plentiful. 

It was Ben Bullock, an ex-miner from Burnley who is credited with inventing a way to put words through rock. You can see how it is done here - just go to the 12th minute of the video. It is said that only 30 people across the UK have the skill these days to put words through rock. What I didn’t know is that most of the rock sold at seaside resorts across England is made in Blackpool. Sadly, it appears that the seaside rock industry is currently under threat by cheaper (and some say inferior) imports from China. Blackpool rock producers want their product to be given geographical protection like Cornish pasties or Lancashire crumbly cheese. In this context, the protection afforded by such descriptive words is important. When you pick up that ubiquitous stick of rock at your next visit to the seaside and I’m sure you will, just have look as to where it was made. Look for the words Fylde, Blackpool or Lancashire.

My fascination and love of words has, over time, helped me realise that the importance of words comes from their ability to shape our thoughts and behaviours, help us connect with others, evoke emotions such as love, anger, sadness, but can also engender hope, and perhaps ensures new ideas are valued as much of stories from the past. Words can have a powerful impact, both good and bad on the lives of others. However, I always keep in mind that, sometimes, not speaking can say more than all the words in the world.