Publisher Hamish Hamilton Format Hardback Publication March 5, 2015 Amazon: $19.44 / Kindle: $14.95

 

The genesis of British nature writer Robert Macfarlane's new book, Landmarks, came about when the author noted in 2007 that the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary (OJD) had removed a slew of words that the publisher felt were no longer relevant to children. Among the words were descriptors of landscape: acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, mistletoe, pasture and willow.

Vineeta Gupta, then head of children's dictionaries at OJD, observed the dictionary needed to "reflect the consensus experience of modern-day children." The older version of the dictionary had many words for flowers, but that was when many children lived in semi-rural areas and saw the seasons change.

Landmarks, says the author, is a celebration and defense of the language of landscape. The author notes: "This is a book about the power of language "?(R)? a word-hoard of the astonishing lexis for landscape that exists in the comprision of islands, rivers, strands, fells, lochs, cities, towns, corries, hedgerows, fields and edgelands uneasily known as the Brisitsh Isles."

The book is a "field guide to the language of nature literature of nature, and a vast glossary collecting thousands of the remarkable terms used in dozens of the languages and dialects of Britain and Ireland to describe and denote aspects of terrain, weather, and nature."

There are thousands of examples, but here are just two:

Honeyfur: A five-year-old girl's creation to describe the soft seeds of grasses pinched between fingertips.

Smeuse: An English dialect noun for the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal.